UC-NRLF LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class ENGLISH SEAMEN Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/englishseamenhawOOsoutrich ENGLISH SEAMEN HAWKINS, GREENVILLE, DEVEREUX RALEIGH BY ROBERT SOUTHEY EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID HANNAY METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON This Edition was first Published in ig04 CONTENTS PAGE Sir Richard Hawkins ......] Sir Richard Greenville 42 Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex - - - 53 Sir Walter Raleigh 284 Notes 487 224172 INTRODUCTION SOUTHEY'S Lives of these four Elizabethans, Sir R. Hawkins, Sir R. Grenville, the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh, are marked by all his usual qualities — sanity of j udgement, excellence of English, and copious use of the Spanish authorities. All four men wei-e in various ways typical of their time. Of Sir Richard Hawkins little need be said. His character is simple, his merits as a seaman and careful thinker on questions of organisation, sanitation, armament and discipline are so conspicuous in his own naiTative of his voyage that there is no need to insist upon them. His limitations are equally easy to leam fi-om the same source, and may be left to speak for themselves, with this one brief word of comment — that when the romance and glory of the Elizabethan age had passed away, the solid business capacity, the practical instincts, and the interest in exploration as a means of obtaining material good, represented by Sir Richard, remained to be employed all thi*ough the seventeenth century in laying the founda- tions of oui- naval power wide and deep by maritime commerce. Sir Richard Grenville stands for ever as the representative of the Glory and Romance. The Elizabeth epic would want its most purple patch if there had been no fight at Flores, in the Azores. Southe/s telling of the tale suffers somewhat from the influence of the prosaic eighteenth century, which thought a Bei-serk only barbarous, and Amadis of Gaul ridiculous altogether. But at least it viii INTRODUCTION compares very favourably in point of sanity with the version of Mr Froude, and Tennyson's adaptation of that vei-sion. It is utterly impossible to accept the Richard Grenville whom they have drawn as a credible human being. To i-emain behind for the puipose of rescuing the sick, and then to insist upon sacrificing them on a point of honour, which is what Mr. Froude and Lord Tennyson would have us believe that Grenville did, would have been the action of a most hysterical and foolish man. Of all the lines of conduct open to him this was the most certain to condemn the crew of the Revenge to those very " devildoms of Spain " from which Grenville is supposed to have wished to rescue them. His decision to force to windward of the Spaniards can only be explained on the gi'ound that he meant to compel them to render him a mark of respect by giving way for him. It can only be justified on the supposition that it was in the good old sense a "rodomontade'' — not a mere piece of bluster, but a vehement explosion of arrogant courage and self-assertion. The Berserks, who were possibly among Grenville's ancestors, had done such things out of a raging passion for battle and their hopes of Valhalla. Of care for his men he can have had none, but it is clear enough that he thought a great deal of triumphing superbly, and of dying in a blaze of glory, leaving behind him that reputation which the Renaissance world cherished as a species of prolongation of life. Sir Richard deserves the fame he sacrificed his life, his crew and the queen's ship to earn — but he deserves it because he became a Berserk at the end and a Rodo- monte, who was ready to die if only his bier would be " a sword-sated heap of the slain," and his name was to dwell for ever in the memory of men. Raleigh's fiery naiTa- tive of the loss of the Revenge has been included by Mr. Arber in his English reprints, together with Gervase Markham's poem, "The most honourable Tragedie of Sii' Richard Grinvill Knight," and an extract from Linschoten. Mr. Arber has not followed Southey's scholarly example in this quotation. He does not replace the passage suppressed in the English translation of Sir Richard's Quixotic speech INTRODUCTION ix (1 use the adjective honoris causa), wherein the dying knight accuses his fellow admiral, and the captains, of cowardice. It was only by stretching the word to the utmost extent of its capacity that Southey was able to include Essex in the list of British admirals. He sailed once in command of "an island voyage," but his other services even in the famous expedition to Cadiz were military. His memory lives as that of a courtier and would-be general and states- man. I am pei-suaded that Southey wrote of him at such disproportionate length in a naval history simply because of the abundance of the printed evidence for his career, and the profound interest of much of it. Only want of access to the State papei-s, which were then hidden con- fusedly in various places, prevented him from giving us a gi-eat deal about the unfortunate Earl Walter, the father of the favourite, his adventures and death in Ireland. The subject none the less cannot have been quite congenial to Southey. With the life of Essex we are brought into close and repellent contact with all that was most unpleas- ant in the court and the character of Queen Elizabeth. Scandal about the gi-eat queen has been long condemned as at least out of date. But we cannot help an instinctive rising of the gorge at the spectacle which she left in her old age to the ridicule, if not the disgust, of posterity. It is absolutely necessary either to keep silence, or to clear our minds of cant, with this story of Elizabeth and Essex before us. Silence is impossible when the life of Essex is the subject, and everything is cant which we can say — except that the queen chose to play the shameful part of an old woman who pays for the love of a young man, and Essex was not ashamed to figure as the juvenile favourite who is paid. The question is not whether foreign diplomatists, who found themselves stopped at her door by ladies-in-waiting and were told that Her Majesty was private with the Earl of Essex, were, or were not, right in the gross conclusions they formed. They were justified in what they said by the queen's unabashed ostentation of immorality. The fashion of the day is an excuse for much, and pei^sonal eccentricities cultivated by the ser- X INTRODUCTION vility of her courtiers account for a good deal. But there never was a time when what Elizabeth pretended to be doing was other than ignoble. Neither can we dismiss it all as the folly of an old woman pretending to be in love with a boy. The queen gave Essex great commands at the very beginning of his career at court and continued to employ him after he had proved his unfitness in France. She acted precisely as other besotted sovereigns have done when under the influence of a passion for an unworthy favourite. Godoy rose no otherwise than Essex. If in- deed she was play-acting then the case is one for quoting Mary Lamb's great saying, " I would not think better of her if she were what you call innocent," applied to another queen. There is that in human nature which accounts for and partially excuses guilt, but what combination of coarseness, cold-blooded shamelessness and folly must there be in the man or woman who assumes the appearance of guilt gi'atuitously ? As for Essex his account is soon sped. He played the ugly part of mercenary young lover of an old woman. It was Godoy and nothing else. It is true that he was capable of fits of petulance which have been counted to him for independence. To me they look much more like the outbreak of the pampered young woman who is kicking over the table in Hogarth's plate. He could take up the cause of followers who wanted places, and strain his credit on their behalf. But it is the regular policy of the Piei-s Gavestons, Buckinghams, Pompadours and Godoys to fill all the places with their own foUowei-s. He was lavish with the wealth which came to him from his mistress — and so were they all. He had the large gesture and ready word of the Renaissance — ^and so had the Imperia and Tullia d'Aragona, of whom all may read easily enough in the chronicles of the age of Lorenzo the Magnificent. When after the dismal Irish failure he might have shown his independence by submitting manfully to poverty he wrote erotic lettei*s to the angi*y old queen, now thoroughly disabused, who sneered at his transparent manoeuvre to secure a renewal of his monopoly of sweet wines, and INTRODUCTION xi ruthlessly cut off his supplies. It is perhaps doubtful whether he provoked her into boxing his eai*s by telling her that " her conditions were as crooted as her carcase ". We have only Raleigh's word for this vile taunt, and for my part I like not the security. But he had deeply offended her and had been chastised with contempt. A minimum of manly pride would have shown him that his only respectable refuge was silent obscurity. He plunged into a brainless rebellion in the company of a few foolish gentlemen and a mob of swashbucklers. Instant collapse was the inevitable consequence, and he ended in a grovel of maundering repentance. His life shows, even more fully than the life of his enemy Raleigh, that if the court of Queen Elizabeth was less openly disordered than Whitehall in the reign of Charles II., it was not essentially less gi-oss nor less immoral. The Restoration has nothing much worse to show than the picture of Essex hiding his wife away at home at the contemptuous order of the fierce old queen, and meanwhile caiTying on intiigues with the maids of honour, who were duly thrashed by theii* mistress when she caught them intercepting her sei*vant. His fits of repentance, which led to nothing but "diseased introspec- tion " and gushings of maudlin piety, do not make the picture less nauseous. They are the exact equivalent of the prayerful entries in the diary of Laurence Hyde, the Earl of Rochester, of the Revolution of 1688 — entries made while he was eagerly forwarding an intrigue, having for its object the control of James II., with the help of his mistress. The stately trappings of the Tudor court covered no small portion of common vulgarity. Pepys and Evelyn had little better in this kind to tell us than the story of the game of primero in 1598. Raleigh, South- ampton, the poet's friend, and one Mr. Parker were noisy over their game outside Her Majesty's bedchamber. Mr. Willoughby, "Esquire of the body," rebuked their in- decency. Raleigh characteristically pocketed his winnings, and went home. Southampton, beloved of the muses, resented dictation by a mere esquire. On this quarrel they fought not with the knightly sword, but as fishwives xii INTRODUCTION do, and the peerage suffered shame. Master Willoughby "polled off some of the EarPs locks" — pulled his hair out by the roots. Zimri Buckingham had the easier task when he snatched off the periwig of Shrewsbury, and gave His Majesty King Charles II. a hearty laugh. Elizabeth applauded her esquire's manful resolution to enforce the respect due to the queen's officers. The name of Raleigh is for ever linked with Essex. If one were in search of a theme wherewith to play the game of making a parallel in the manner of Plutarch, a better could not easily be found, so many, and so obvious, are the points of comparison and unlikeness. Both rose by the court and the queen's favour. Both lost her regard, and suffered from her anger. Each offended her by marriage. They bore arms against the Spaniard, and in Ireland. It was the fate of both to lay their heads on a bloody pillow as traitors. Nothing would be easier than to go on multiplying similarities which are after all not similar except in the separable accidents. The two men were essentially different. Of Essex we can only say that he was weak, endowed with a share of purely external cleverness and magnanimity, but without any foundation of character. Raleigh was an independent force, and would most assuredly have left his mark on his time even if he had not found favour in the queen's eyes when he brought her Zouch's dispatches from Ireland in 1581. For it was given to him to be in every way representative of his age. If a man is to be judged only by what he actually achieved in the way of work done then Raleigh may be said to have been oveiTated. Enterprises adopted from othei-s, pursued for a time with zeal and then dropped, schemes which met with no application or only a half one, work begun and left unfinished, drafts of books, fi-ag- ments of histories, dreams of conquest and of colonization in Ireland and Virginia, tried and abandoned, scientific experiment which led to nothing but the concoction of a quack medicine — the wreckage of an activity which had no bounds, and of an intellectual curiosity which was insatiable, lie scattered all along his path from boyhood to the scaffold. INTRODUCTION xiii Yet the instinct of mankind which judges without appeal has assuredly not been wrong when it has singled out Raleigh to make him a hero. Not on the vulgar mass Called " work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; O'er which, from level stand. The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice. Saving the reverence of the Rabbi Ben Ezia, the low world can detect the '* instincts immatui-e " and the " pur- poses unsure," and will allow when making up the man's account for more than it can take between its coai-se thumb and finger. It will value a man for what he was rather than for what he did. We can deduct Raleigh from the gi-eat queen's reign, and make no diminution of the sum of its achievements. Burleigh, Walsingham, Drake, Mar- lowe, Spenser, Hooker, and a score of othei-s, left something done without which their time had been much the poorer in government, in action, in thought and in literature. But what was there which Raleigh found for himself and finished ? Nothing — not even the colonization of Virginia, for in that field his haii-brother. Sir Humphrey Gilbeit, was his leader, and his colony perished. None the less we can- not imagine him away without knowing how great the loss would be to us, and that because he was the most complete representative of his generation, the most Eliza- bethan of Elizabethan Englishmen. The type is capable of being precisely defined — the true Elizabethan was he in whom the Humanism of the Re- naissance was the inspiring influence. For its morality Humanism had the Abbey of Thelema, with its belief that pleasure is the one good worth seeking, and its theory that there is an instinct in rightly constituted men and women, which will lead them to live nobly without the control of religion — if we ought not rather to say that the religion of Humanism was the pureuit of pleasure for the intellect, the eye, and the flesh, gi'acefuUy, and with avoidance of the gi-oss excesses which brutalize and stupefy. It is an ideal which has always had, and has, its admirers. xir INTRODUCTION What became of the Abbey of Thelema when inhabited not by the imaginary men and women of noble nature, but by actual sons and daughters of Adam, let Italy testify and France, Brantome and our own Nash ; for we also can bring our contribution to the testimony. The court of Elizabeth was our Abbey of Thelema. Leicester lived there, and there was much else congenial to him and his like. It was the function of the Reformation to launch the dart at the head of the lie, and teach once more "original sin, the coiTuption of men's hearts". But the day of the Reformation was not to come in England till the seventeenth century. In the meantime the Humanists themselves could frankly allow that the Abbey of Thelema was not for all men, but for the aristocratic few. Outside was the gross herd of which Giordano Bruno, a genuine spokesman of Humanism, wrote so scornfully, and Raleigh, his contemporary, perhaps his friend, and certainly his partisan, not otherwise than the Nolan. Much might be said of this Utopia, particularly as touching the difficulty of defining the notes of the real aristocracy. But one of its aspects can be fixed with confidence. Since it was to live for refined pleasure of mind, taste, and corporeal appetite, and therefore required leisure, fine buildings, rich clothing, costly hoi-ses, still more costly jewels, and treasures of art only to be bought at a great price, it had a peremptory need for large sums of money. Given now a select world claiming to be a law to itself, and quite unable to dispense with a full pui-se ; remembering, too, that its members, little as they wei-e prepared to confess the truth, shared the human nature of the despised herd, washed and perfumed, but not altered in essentials ; and not forgetting that a man might belong thereto, and yet be the son of a gentle- man of Devon of modest estate, there is a result of these conditions which will at once present itself. It is that the Abbey of Thelema of brick and stone, of warm-blooded men and women, might instantly reveal itself as no moi-e nor less than the scene of a fierce absorbing struggle for money and money's-worth, as well as the abode of pleasures which are quite elementary. INTRODUCTION xv Such, when the glamour is stripped off them, were Raleigh's theatre and his life. The noble life interpreted itself into a tough scramble for places and monopolies, for the pay given to professions of love, for forfeitures. Mr. Walter Raleigh makes himself useful to the unspeakable Earl of Oxford, Sir Walter Raleigh goes about caiTying in his bosom the jewels which are to be his security for his fees as broker of the equally unspeakable Cobham, who seeks a " fee farm " from the Crown. The Abbey of Thelema did not become the Whitehall of the Restoration all at once. In the sixteenth century it still cared for more than money and stimulants. Ad- venture, war, romantic and poetic deliveries of a man's self were much to the Renaissance. The will to live by every faculty of mind and body was strong in the world around Sir Walter Raleigh, and in no man did it strain more vigorously than in him. Therefore he touched what- ever his time was doing, from efforts to found colonies, to experiments in chemistry — passing by literature on the way. It is not by this squandering of a man's energies that excellence as a workman is reached. "Unstable as water thou shalt not excel " is the law for him, and he must learn how to limit himself. Raleigh never could, and therefore of things finished and perfected he achieved a small bunch of lyi'ics, while all the rest is fi-agment, plan unexecuted and dream unrealised. And for that too he is the fittest representative of an age which forgot too much the bounds of man's capacity. In nothing does he speak for it better than in his failure to keep himself clean from the defilement of lies, and to avoid ending in blood and shame. The Abbey of Thelema recognises no obligation to others but only to yourself, and to your claim to live your life to the full. It is only in the dreams of the Humanist that any community can exist cleanly in an anarchy, be it ever so much gilded with art and poetry, ever so maj^nanimous in its bearing. The Re- formers gave one set of reasons for believing Rabelais' eai-thly paradise to be impossible. Another of the mighty spirits of the Renaissance found a different ai'gument b xvi INTRODUCTION which, as being more secular, may be more acceptable to our time. " It would be," said Machiavelli, " ' laudabilis- sima cosa ' if our great man could be wholly made of the virtues, but that cannot be ' per le condizioni umane che non lo consentono '." Human conditions are not to be escaped, and since the man of the Humanist Renaissance was resolved to live for himself in disregard of accepted moral obligations, he inevitably became cruel and a liar. Raleigh was both. In Ireland he used and defended assassination. At all times and everywhere he was in- different to the truth. Wealth he would have and must have, and if falsehood or ferocity seemed the only means of attaining his wish he would use them. He could be kind to humble people dependent on him, the tin-workei-s of Cornwall, or townsmen of Jersey whom he could rule from afar. But I find his tone to his sailors in the Dis- coverie of Guiana unpleasant. He speaks of them as mere tools, and shows a snobbish consciousness of his own refinement of habits, which made the boat on the Orinoco so intolerable. His aiTogant bearing to the vulgar herd made him hateful to his countrymen, and they must really be pardoned for resenting the contempt of a gentleman who sold himself for money to a mistress, and was for ever scheming to get gold. As for the lies they accom- panied him all through life. The Discover k, brilliant as it is, has the falsity of a prospectus. No human credulity can accept his loquacious and plausible Indian chiefs. Words with Sir Walter were pawns in a game and baits for the unwary. By dint of living in an imaginary higher sphere and of looking on the mass of men as raw material to be coerced or fooled, he ended by overdoing the trick- ery. The vulgar herd was intelligent enough to see that it was being played on when Antonio de Benio was pre- sented to it on one page as a monster of cruelty and treachery, because the purpose was to secure shareholders for a venture in Guiana, and introduced on the next as a gentleman very valiant and liberal, of great assuredness and a gi'eat heart, because he was now to be quoted as a witness for the existence of Manoa. What could they INTRODUCTION xvii think of the sincerity of a man who, after declaiming against the cruelty of the Spaniards to the Indians, says that if the Emperor of Manoa, El Dorado, will not pay a large body of English younger sons and captains out of employment handsomely, for settling themselves on him as protectors, he has no iron and can be conquered ? What they did think we know from the history of the Cobham conspu-acy and the Winchester trial. It was that he was a man of boundless insolence, in-eligious, eager for war in which he saw his profit, and contemptuous of all truth and duty. When he had fallen the manly instinct of that same common English herd turned it from hatred to pity. The king's subservience to Spain gave Raleigh a popularity he had never had before, and he became the representative of a national sentiment. The story of his last cruise and his death was an atonement for all — and it was right it should be. Death paid all debts in his case, and his own miserable intrigues with Savoy and France, his schemes of piracy, and his pitiful manoeuvres to preserve life, are not woi-se than the meanness of the king. They are awful when we look at them as the end to which a gentleman, valiant and liberal, of gi-eat assuredness and a great heart, was brought, simply because he had been taught in his Hu- manist Abbey of Thelema that to be splendid in life and superb in deliveries of yourself, to love pleasure and beauty, is finer than the homespun rule that it is best to be an honest man. Also he lives as the martyr of the insolent faith of Humanism that what is meant by having the fear of God before your eyes is good only for the herd. ENGLISH SEAMEN SIR RICHARD HAWKINS WHILE the great seamen of Elizabeth's age were in- fluenced, some by the love of enterprise, and others by the hope of plunder, the queen's ministers had in view the discovery of distant countries, the opening a trade with them by just and peaceful means, and the establishment of better discipline in the ships. These objects were distinctly declared in the instructions to Mr. Edward Fenton for an intended voyage to the East Indies and Cathay, which was planned after Drake's return from his circumnavigation. He was charged not to receive "any disordered or mutinous person " ; and if any were found to be such, to remove him before he sailed, or by the way as soon as could conveniently be done. The extent of the captain -general's authority was defined, and eight assistants were named, with whom he was to consult in all cases not provided for in his instructions. They were "straightly enjoined, as they would answer the contrary by the laws of the land, that neither going, tarrying abroad, nor returning, they should spoil or take anything from any of the queen's friends, or any Christians, without paying justly for the same, nor to use any manner of violence or force against any such, except in their own defence". Item, it was said, *'we will that you deal altogether in this voyage like good and honest merchants, trafficking and exchanging ware for ware, with all courtesy to the nations you shall deal with, as well Ethnicks as others ; and for that cause you shall instruct all those that shall go with you, that whensoever you or any of you shall happen to come in any place to conference with 1 2 ENGLISH SEAMEN the people of those parts, that in all your doings and theirs, you so behave yourselves towards the said people, as may rather procure their friendship and good liking by courtesy, than move them to oiFence or misliking, and especially you shall have great care of the performance of your word and promise to them ". Where they succeeded in settling " a beginning of further trade," they were charged to bring home, if they might, some few men and women, leaving one, two, or more well-chosen persons as pledges for them, and ''to learn the tongue and secrets of the country ; having diligent care that in thus giving hostages they should not deliver personages of more value than they received, but rather mean persons under colour of men of value, as the infidels do for the most part use ". None were to traffic on their own account, nor make any charts or descriptions of the voyage, except those whom the general deputed, and these on their return were to be delivered to the queen's council, no copies being kept. " And to the end that God might bless their voyage with happy and prosperous success, especial care was to be taken that reverence and respect were had to the ministers appointed to accompany them, as appertaining to their place and calling ; and that such good order as they should set down for reformation of life and manners should be duly obeyed, and enforced by severely punishing the transgressors and contemners of the same. The ministers were sometimes to remove from one vessel to another." * As ^his expedition was planned before there was open war with Spain, and as the object, indeed, on the part of Government, appears to have been altogether pacific, Fenton was ordered not to pass by the Straits of Magellan, either going or returning, except upon great occasion, and by the advice of his assistants. They, however, determined upon taking that course, and persisted in it for awhile after they had learnt on the coast of Brazil that the Spanish fleet had sailed from Rio de Janeiro for the purpose of securing that passage. Drawing nearer they began to weigh the danger of encountering a very superior force, in disobedience of their explicit orders : this made them abandon the intention. They returned to Brazil, hoping there to obtain provisions ; fell in * Hakluyt, iii. 754-757, SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 8 at St. Vicente with three of the Spanish ships, and, after an indecisive action with them, made for England, *' without having attempted anything creditable to themselves or bene- ficial to their employers ". A pinnace, commanded by John Drake, was cast away on their return near the Plata : the captain was one of those who escaped from the Indian to the Spanish settlements ; and nothing more is known of his fate than that he was sent to Peru. That, and many other par- ticulars relating to the relations between Spain and England, and the treatment of English prisoners in Spanish America, would have been made known if Sir Richard Hawkins had lived to complete the narrative of his own adventures. Sir John Hawkins's father bred this son to the sea-service; and it is evident that his education, in other respects, had not been neglected, but that his mind was well stored with various and useful knowledge. After distinguishing himself in what was then called (in Spanish idiom) the journey against the Spanish Armada, he, who with his father's counsel, con- sent, and help, had resolved upon a voyage for the islands of Japan, of the Philippines, and Moluccas, and the kingdoms of China and the East Indies, by the way of the Straits of Magellan and the South Sea, caused a ship to be built for it on the Thames, of between 300 and 400 tons. The work was finished to his entire content ; " for she was pleasing to the eye, profitable for stowage, good of sail, and well conditioned ". — " The day of her launching," he says, " being appointed, the Lady Hawkins, my mother-in-law, craved the naming of the ship, which was easily granted her ; and she, knowing what voyage was pretended to be undertaken, named her the Re- pentance. What her thoughts were was kept secret to herself ; and although many times I expostulated with her to declare the reason for giving her that uncouth name, I could never have any other satisfaction than that ' Repentance was the safest ship we could sail in to purchase the haven of Heaven '. Well I know she was no prophetess, though a religious and most virtuous lady, and of a very good understanding. Yet too prophetical it fell out by God's secret judgments, and was sufficient for the present to cause me to desist from the enter- prise, and leave the ship to my father, who willingly took her, and paid the entire charge of the building and furnishing of her, which I had concerted or paid. And this I did, not for any superstition I have in names, or for that I think them 4 ENGLISH SEAMEN able to further or hinder anything ; for that all immediately dependeth upon the providence of Almighty God, and is disposed by Him alone. Yet advise I all persons ever (as near as they can) by all means, and on all occasions, to pre- sage unto themselves the good they can." * It chanced, however, that when the Repentance had been " put in perfection," and was riding at Deptford, the queen, passing by on her way to the palace of Greenwich, '^com- manded her bargemen to row round about her, and viewing her from post to stem disliked nothing but her name, and said she would christen her anew, and that thenceforth she should be called the Dainty". Under that name she made many prosperous voyages in the queen's services ; and when her owner. Sir John, resolved to sell her, though with some loss, because she "never brought but cost, trouble, and care to him," his son. Sir Richard, whose forebodings concerning her had been removed when she was anabaptised, and who ever had had "a particular love unto her, and a desire that she should continue in the family," repurchased her from him, with all her furniture, at the price for which he had formerly disposed of her. And having " waged a competent number of men," and purchased sufficient stores for his journey ''so often talked of, and so much desired," he was ready, at the beginning of April, 1 593, to sail from Blackwall to Plymouth, there to join the other two vessels destined for this expedi- tion, the one a ship of 100 tons, the other a pinnace of 60, both his own. An expectation that the lord high admiral with Sir Robert Cecil, principal secretary to the queen, and Sir Walter Raleigh, would honour him and his ship with their presence and farewell, detained him some days. But rain and " untemperate " weather deprived him of the favour which he hoped to have received at their hands ; and the * The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knight, in his Voyage into the South Sea, a.d. 1593. London, 1622. He advises them also, " in giving names to terrestrial works (especially to ships), not to give such as merely represent the celestial character ; for few had he known or seen come to a good end which have had such attributes". He in- stances the Revenge, in which Sir Richard Greenville was taken, as "ever the unfortunatest ship" in Elizabeth's service, being even a ship loaden and full fraught with ill success ; and the Thunderbolt of London, which had, first, her mast split by lightning; secondly, had her poop blown up ; and, lastly, was burnt with all her crew in the river at Bour- deaux. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 5 wind serving, according to his wish, he caused the pilot to "wayle down to Gravesend, took an unhappy last leave of his father, and followed in his barge ". * Coming to Barking he saw the Dainty at anchor in the midst of the channel, and soon learnt that he had been in no small peril of losing both ship and goods. They had sailed with an E. N. E. wind, which veered southerly, and forced them, in doubling a point, to tack aboard and luff up ; just then the wind freshened, and the ship heeled ; she was very deeply laden, and her ports open ; the water began to enter at them ; the crew paid no regard to this, thinking themselves safe in the river, till the weight of water, more than the wind, began to press down the side, and when the danger was perceived, and the sheets flown, she could hardly be brought upright. " The peril," he observed, " from which it pleased God that with the exertions of his people she es- caped, might be a gentle warning to all such as take charge of shipping, even before they sail, either in river or harbour, to have an eye to their ports, and see those shut and calked, which might cause danger, for avoiding the many mishaps that daily chance through the neglect thereof." He called to mind, upon this occasion, the loss of the Mary Rose, as in this age, and in ages to come, that of the Royal George will be remembered. t The men now refused to proceed, unless the ship were lightened. Sir Richard thought this needless, and that there would have been no danger but for their negligence. Mariners, however, he said, ''are like a stiff-necked horse, who takes the bridle between his teeth " ; and he was obliged to con- tent them by engaging a hoy, into which he ''loaded some six or eight tons ". Untoward weather delayed them on the way to Plymouth ; and in the course of a month after his arrival there, by his " continual travail, the help of his good friends, and excessive charge, which none," he says, "could easily believe but those who had proved it," he was ready to set sail with his three ships, drawn out into the sound, and began to gather his company aboard. But then "began a storm of wind westerly," in which the Dainty was hardly saved by cutting away her mainmast, and the pinnace sunk. A " well- willing friend " forewarned him that these mischances * Observations^ 4, 5. t Ibid.^^. 6 ENGLISH SEAMEN were presages of bad success, and endeavoured to dissuade him from proceeding with an adventure which had begun so ill ; yet " the hazard of his credit, and danger of disreputa- tion, to take in hand that which he should not prosecute by all means possible, was more powerful to cause him to go forward than this grave good counsel to make him desist". The pinnace was raised : his own credit, with the help of his wife's father, enabled him, in ten days, to put all in as good a state as before ; "and once again," says he, " in God's name, I brought my ships out into the sound, and began to take leave of my friends, and of my dearest friend,* my second self, whose unfeigned tears had wrought me unto irresolution, and sent some other in my room, had I not considered that he that is in the dance must needs dance on, though he do but hop, except he will be a laughing-stock to all the lookers on. So remembering that many had their eyes set upon me, with diverse affections, as also the hope of good success (my intention being honest and good), I shut the door to all im- pediments, and mine ear to all contrary counsel, and gave place to voluntary banishment from all that I loved and esteemed in this life." -|- The account of his departure J is beautifully given in his * Lope de Vega introduced in his Dragontea a parting scene between Hawkins and — " su esposa, Que avia sido de la Reyna Daraa, Mas que se puede encarecer hermosa Si fe se deve a la estrangera fama." Hawkins, whose name is transformed into Achines, he describes as " Mozo de treyuta y tres anos gallardo Que Richart en su lengua se dezia, Y que nuestro Espanol llama Ricardo." — Canto ii. f Observations, 6-14. X His friends, and the justices of the town, were employed two days in searching all lodgings, taverns, and ale-houses, before his people could be got aboard: "for some would ever be taking their leave and never depart ; some drank themselves so drunk, that, except they were carried aboard, they of themselves were not able to go one step ; others, knowing the necessity of the time, feigned themselves sick ; others, to be indebted to their hosts, and forced me to ransom them ; one his chest, another his sword, another his shirts, another his card and instruments for sea ; and others, to benefit themselves of the imprest given them, absented them- selves, making a lewd living in deceiving all whose money they could lay hold of, which is a scandal too rife among our seamen, and an abuse in our commonwealth necessary to be reformed. In what sort they dealt SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 7 own narrative. All being come aboard, and all put in order, in the afternoon of the 12th of June, " I looft near the shore to give my farewell to all the inhabitants of the town, where- of the most part were gathered together upon the Howe, to show their grateful correspondency to the love and zeal which I, my father, and predecessors have ever borne to that place as to our natural and mother town. And first with my noise of trumpets, after with my waytes, and then with my other music, I made the best signification I could of a kind farewell. This they answered with the waytes of the town, and the ordnance on the shore, and with shouting of voices, which, with the fair evening and silence of the night, were heard a great distance off." * When they were near the line, his men began to fall sick of the scurvy, which, "though in all seas it is wont to help and increase the misery of man, reigned especially in that climate" ; and he thought the English were more subject to with me is notorious, and was such that if I had not been provident to have had a third part more of men than I had need of, I had been forced to go to sea unmanned, or to give over my voyage. And many of my company at sea vaunted how they had cousined the Earl of Cumberland, Master Cavendish, Master Raymond, and others, some of five pounds, some of ten, some of more, and some of less ; and truly I think my voyage pros- pered the worse for theirs and other lewd persons' company," This evil he thought " might be redressed by some extraordinary, severe, and present justice to be executed on the offenders by the justice in that place where they should be found. And for finding them it were good that all captains and masters of ships at their departure out of the port should give unto the head justice the names and signs of all their runaways, and they presently to despatch to the nigher ports the advice agreeable, where meeting with them, without further delay or process to use martial law." He thought also that the custom of making imprests to the sailors, which had lately crept into the commonwealth, " was of much more hurt than good, experience having shown that the men for the most part consumed the money lewdly before they departed, and returned more beggarly than when they went forth, having received and spent their portion. All which go to the sea now-a-days," he adds, " are provided of food and house-room, and all things necessary during the time of the voyage, and in all long voyages, of apparel also ; so that nothing is to be spent during the voyage. That money which is wont to be cast away in imprests might be employed in apparel and necessaries at sea, given to those that have need, at the price it was bought, to be deducted out of their shares or wages at their return, which is reasonable and charitable." Imprests to married men, made in the form of a monthly allowance to their wives during their absence, he thought useful (pp. 14-16). * Observations, 16. 8 ENGLISH SEAMEN it than any other people. " I wish/' said he, " some learned man would write of it, for it is the plague of the sea, * and the spoil ot mariners. Doubtless it would be a meritorious work with God and man, and most beneficial for our country ; for in twenty years, since I have used the sea, I dare take upon me to give account of 10,000 men consumed with this disease." Having stood to the westward some hundred leagues and more, the wind continuing contrary, and the sickness so fervent that every day there died more or less, the men lost heart, and desired to return homeward. He represented to them that to hold on was the surest way of soon finding relief, " for every night they might see the reach go contrary to the wind, verifying the mariner's old proverb, that he who will sail by the reach hath need of a long mast ". The speediest refreshing they could look for was the coast of Brazil ; and were they to put all their sick in one ship, and send her homeward, it would be making her their grave ; for they could spare but few sound men, and those also were liable to take the disease. So leaving all to their choice, they assented to his opinion, and resolved to continue their course till God should please to look upon them with his fatherly eyes of mercy. Hawkins, who was a religious man himself, endeavoured to encourage in his people those re- ligious feelings which they had rather disregarded than des- pised ; and after they had solemnly returned thanks to God for their deliverance when the ship was on fire and in imminent danger of being consumed, he took occasion, with their general consent, " to banish swearing out of the three ships". This was effected by ordaining that in every ship there should be a ferula, or palmer, given to the keeping of the first who was " taken with an oath ". He could be rid of it only by taking another in the same offence, when he was to give him a I, or stroke on the palm, and transfer to him the * His own observations upon it, both as to the causes and remedies, are very sensible. What he had found most profitable, he says, were "sour oranges and lemons, and a water which amongst others (for my particular provision) I carried to the sea, called Dr. Stevens his water, of which, for that his virtue was not then well known unto me, I carried but little, and it took end quickly ; but it gave health to those that used it. The oil of vitry is beneficial for this disease, taking two drops of it mingled in a draught of water, with a little sugar. But the principal of all is the air of the land, for the sea is natural for fishes, and the land for men " (p. 37). SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 9 instrument of punishment. Whoever had it in his possession at the time of evening or morning prayer was to receive three palmadas from the captain or master, and still bear it, till he could make a transfer agreeable to the law. This in a few days "brought both swearing and ferulas out of use. And, certainly," he adds, " in vices custom is the principal susten- ance ; and for their reformation it is little available to give good counsel or make good laws and ordinances, except they be executed." * When they were about twenty degrees south of the line, an unfavourable wind and the sickness of the people, for there were not more than four and twenty sound men in the three ships, induced Hawkins to seek the shore ; and anchoring two leagues off the port of Santos, he endeavoured to procure there by policy what he was too weak to obtain by force. He sent, therefore, his captain with a flag of truce, " a piece of crimson velvet and a bolt of fine holland, with divers other things," as a present to the governor, and a letter written in Latin, saying, that being bound to the East Indies to traffic in those parts, contrary winds had forced him upon that coast, and proposing to exchange some of his goods for the com- modities which that country yielded in abundance. There were sixteen well armed men in the boat, guided by one who " two years before had been captain in that place, and so was a reasonable pilot". The officer in command of the garrison, near the mouth of the harbour, received them courteously, and detained them while the letter was sent to the governor, who was in the town some twelve miles off. As the boat did not return during that day, and there were no signs of it at nine the following morning, Hawkins became uneasy, manned a light horseman and his pinnace, the best he could, " showing strength where was weakness and infirmity," and went with these toward the port, piloted by the gunner who had been there some years before. When they were within the harbour, the boat came aboard, bringing a few fowls, and 200 or 300 oranges and lemons which they had been allowed to purchase from the women, and which were what Hawkins principally sought for, "as the remedy for his diseased company". He now anchored right against the village where the garrison was stationed, to wait the governor's reply : a flag of truce * Observations, 35-41. 10 ENGLISH SEAMEN was soon seen from the shore, indicating that it was come ; the boat went for it, and brought an unwelcome, but be- coming reply. The Portuguese Governor said he was sorry he could not consent to so reasonable a request ; but that in consideration of the war between Spain and England he had received orders not to suffer any English to trade within his jurisdiction, no, nor to land, nor take any refreshments upon the shore. He craved pardon, therefore, and desired Hawkins to take this for a decisive answer, and to quit the port within three days, which time, he said, was given him in acknowledg- ment of his courteous manner of proceeding. But if any of his people approached the shore they would be treated as enemies.* Before this answer came Hawkins had " determined to be packing " with the first fair wind ; but the wind sufficed him not all that night, nor the next day. "In which time," he says, " I lived in a great perplexity, for that I knew our own weakness, and what they might do unto us if they had known so much. Any man that putteth himself into an enemy's port hath need of Argus's eyes, and the wind in a bag, especially where the enemy is strong, and the tides of any force ; for with either ebb or flow those who are on the shore may thrust upon him inventions of fire, and with swimming or other devices may cut his cables, — a common practice in all hot countries. The like may be effected with rafts, canoes, boats, or pin- naces, to annoy and assault him ; and if this had been practised against us our ships must of force have yielded, for they had no other people in them but sick men : but many times opinion and fear preserveth the ships and not the people in them." That the ships should not be dismayed at his tarriance, he sent off the light horseman with part of the refreshment, and the next night came out of the harbour sounding as he went. When he came aboard "there was great joy among the company, and many with the sight of the oranges and lemons seemed to recover heart". And though when all were " reparted among the sick, there came not above three or four to a share," yet these, with a prosper- ous wind, so much recruited them, that without any more deaths they reached some islets not far from Cape Frio, where it was his intention to refresh his men. Fresh water * Observations f 49-51. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 11 had failed them many days before they made the land, by reason not only of their long passage, but of the excessive thirst of the sick ; "yet," says he, "with an invention I had in my ship, I easily drew out of the water of the sea sufficient quantity of fresh water to sustain my people with little ex- pense of fuel, for with four billets I stilled a hogshead of water, and therewith dressed the meat for the sick and whole: the water so distilled is found to be wholesome and nourishing ". * Having providentially -f escaped shipwreck on the way, they reached these islets, which, he says, some called Santiago's, and some St, Anne's ; they set up tents and booths for the sick ; upon some smaller isles they found great store of young gan- nets in their nests, which "being boiled with pickled pork, well watered and mingled with oatmeal, made reasonable pottage ; they found also abundance of purslane, which boiled, and made into salads, with oil and vinegar, refreshed the sick stomachs, and gave appetite ". What with the air * Observations, 51, 52. t Sir Richard Hawkins's own relation may show how justly this escape is called providential. " The night coming on, and directions given to our other ships, we set the watch, having a fair fresh gale of wind and large. Myself, with the master of our ship, having watched the night past, thought now to give nature that which she had been deprived of, and so recommended the care of steerage to one of his mates ; who with the like travel past, being drowsy, or with the confidence which he had of him at the helm, had not that watchful care which was required. He at the helm brought us in a little time close upon the shore. Doubtless he had cast us all away, had not God extraordinarily delivered us ; for the master, being in his dead sleep, was suddenly awaked, and with such a fright, that he could not be in quiet : whereupon, waking his youth, which ordin- arily slept in his cabin by him, he asked him how the watch went on, who answered that it could not be above an hour since he laid himself to rest. He replied, his heart was so unquiet that he could not by any means sleep ; and so taking his gown came forth upon the deck, and presently discovered the land hard by us ; and, for that it was sandy and low, those who had their eyes continually fixed on it, were dazzled with the reflec- tion of the stars, being a fair night, and so were hindered from the true discovery thereof. But he coming out of the dark had his sight more forcible to discern the difference of the sea and the shore. So that forth- with he commanded him at the helm to put it close a-starboard, and tacking our ship we edged off, and sounding, found scant three fathom water, whereby we saw evidently the miraculous mercy of our God, that if He had not watched over us, as He doth continually over his, doubtless we had perished without remedy : to whom be all glory and praise ever- lastingly, world without end." 12 ENGLISH SEAMEN of the shore and good cherishing, many recovered, but some died away quickly, and others continued at a stand, so that having lost more than half his people by sickness, Hawkins burnt one of his ships. He tarried here more than a month, then set sail once more, having only six men sick. A few days after they chased and captured a Portuguese ship, laden with mandioc meal {farinha de pao), and bound for Angola, there to load negroes for the Plata, from whence they were to be sent to the mines at Potosi. A Portuguese was on board, going out to be Governor of Angola, with his wife and daughter, fifty soldiers, and arms for 150. '' He was old, and complained that, after many years' service for his king, with sundry mishaps, he was brought to that poor estate, as for the relief of his wife, his daughter, and himself, he had no other substance but what he had in that ship. It moved compassion, so as nothing of his was diminished, which, though to us it was of no great moment, in Angola it was worth good crowns ; only we disarmed them all, and let them depart." They took out of their prize some chests of sugar and a good quantity of the meal. The men were much ani- mated with this unlooked-for supply, and "praised God for his bounty, providence, and grace extended toward them".* When they were in the latitude of the Plata, some fifty leagues off the coast, a storm came on from the south, and endured forty-eight hours ; and on the first day, " about the going down of the sun," Tharlton, the master of the pinnace, bore up before the wind, without making any sign of distress. Hawkins, seeing her continue this course, bore up after her ; and night coming on, he carried a light. The light was never answered ; and Tharlton, keeping his course directly for Eng- land, "in this shameless manner deserted his commander ".-[- " But," says Hawkins, " I was worthy to be deceived that trusted my ship in the hands of a hypocrite, and a man which had left his general before on the like occasion, and in the self-same place ; for being with Master Thomas Cavendish, master of a small ship, in the voyage wherein he died, this captain being aboard the Admiral, in the night-time forsook his fleet, his general and captain, and returned home. De- sertions such as these," he observes, "have been the prime cause of many lamentable losses and overthrows, to the dis- * Observations, 54-64. t Burney, 122. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 13 honour of the nation, and the frustrating of many good and honourable enterprises ; and many times the offenders went unpunished, for that there is none to follow the cause, the principal being either dead with grief, or drowned in the gulf of poverty, and so not able to wade through with the burden of that suit, which in Spain is prosecuted by the king's attorney." Suspecting no such baseness, he and his people made account that their comrades had gone down in the storm, and ''much lamented them". During the gale " certain great fowls, as big as swans, soared about the vessel, and when the wind calmed they settled themselves, and fed upon the sweepings of the ship". These were albatrosses; and Hawkins, wishing to examine them, "because they seemed far greater in truth than they were," threw out a fishing-line baited with pilchard.* This sort of angling succeeded well ; and enough were caught to give all the crew good refreshment for that day.-|- The ship Dainty, now without a companion, pursued her course toward the straits ; and falling in with the Falkland Islands, which Davis had discovered eighteen months before. Sir Richard, to whom this was not known, | supposed that this Terra Australis had not been seen by any European navigator, and in that belief, and " for that it was discovered," says he, " in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, my sovereign lady, and a maiden queen, and at ray cost, in perpetual memory of her chastity, and of my endeavours, I gave it the name of * " Our ship driving with the sea, the float in a little time was a good space from us, and one of the fowls presently seized upon it and the hook in his upper beak. It is like to a falcon's bill, but that the point is more crooked, in that manner as by no means he could clear himself, except that the line brake, or the hook righted. Plucking him toward the ship, with the waving of his wings he eased the weight of his body, and being brought to the stern of our ship, two of our company went down by the ladder of the poop, and seized on his neck and wings ; but such were the blows he gave them with his pinions, that both left their hand-fast, being beaten black and blue. We cast a snare about his neck, and so tryced him into the ship" (p. 68). t Observations, 66-68, I Davis arrived at Bearhaven in Ireland on the nth of June, 1593, on his return from this voyage, and Hawkins sailed from Plymouth on the 13th. It is certain, therefore, that he could not have received any com- munication of Davis's discovery. But Admiral Burney justly observes, " It cannot easily be imagined that a man so curious as he was after maritime knowledge, should have remained unacquainted with Jane's account of Mr. Cavendish's last voyage, in which it is related ", 14 ENGLISH SEAMEN Hawkins's Maiden Land ". On the 1 9th of February he entered the straits ; and having doubled the point on the starboard, and opened a fair bay, discovered there the hull of a ship beaten upon the beach, one of the fleet which had carried thither Sarmiento's unfortunate colonists. At the Penguin Islands they stored themselves with these birds ; which were prepared by first cutting off the head that they might bleed well, then splitting them, washing them in sea water, letting them lie some six hours in salt, then pressing them for eight hours, and "the blood being soaked out, salting them again in the casks like beef; instead of which they served for about two months". All parts of the island where they haunted were undermined with their burrows, "save only one valley, which it seemed they reserved for their food, for it was as green as any meadow in the month of April, with a most fine short grass ". The hunting of them he describes as " a great recreation to his company, and worth the sight. Good store of people were required, each with a cudgel in his hand, to compass them round about, and bring them as it were into a ring. If they chanced to break out, then was the sport ; for the ground being undermined, at unawares it failed, and as they ran after them one fell here, another there ; another, offering to strike at one, lifting up his hand, sunk up to the arm-pits in the earth ; another, leaping to avoid one hole, fell into another. After the first slaughter, on seeing us on the shore, they shunned us, and procured to recover the sea ; yea, many times, seeing them- selves persecuted, they would tumble down from such high rocks as it seemed impossible to escape with life. Yet, as soon as they came to the beach, presently we should see them run into the sea, as though they had no hurt. Where one goeth the other followeth, like sheep after the bell- wether ; but in getting them once within the ring close together few escaped, save such as by chance hid themselves in the burrows ; and ordinarily there was no drove which yielded us not a thousand or more." * The ducks, which were very numerous, " had a part of the island to themselves several : it was the highest hill there, and more than a musket-shot over. In all the days of my life," says this observant seaman, " I have not seen greater art * Observations, 73. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 15 and curiosity in creatures void of reason than in the placing and making of their nests ; all the hill being so full of them that the greatest mathematician could not devise to place one more than there was, leaving only one pathway for a fowl to pass betwixt. The hill was all level as if it had been smoothed by art ; the nests made only of earth, and seeming to be of the self-same mould : for the nests and the soil is all one, which with water that they bring in their bills they make into clay, and after fashion them round as with a compass. In the bottom they contain the measure of a foot ; in the height about eight inches ; and in the top the same quantity over ; there they are hollowed in, somewhat deep, wherein they lay their eggs without other prevention ; and I am of opinion that the sun helpeth them to hatch their young. Their nests are for many years, and of one proportion, not one exceeding another in bigness, in height, nor circumference ; and in proportionable distance one from another. In all this hill, nor in any of their nests, was to be found a blade of grass, a straw, a stick, a feather, a mote, no, nor the filing of any fowl ; but all the nests and passages betwixt them were so smooth and clean, as if they had been newly swept and washed." * Still hoping that the pinnace might be following, he here wrote instructions where she was to seek him, enrolled them in many folds of paper, put them into the barrel of an old musket, carefully secured against the wet, and placed it on end upon one of the highest hills, and the most frequented of the island. Before he left the straits, finding his decks open, with the long lying under the line and on the coast of Brazil, he calked the ship "within board and without, above the decks, from post to stern". And he repaired his water casks, into which it was found that the worm had got when they were taken ashore in Brazil to be trimmed and filled : the manner of sheathing which his father had invented f * Observations, 74. + Half-inch plank sheathing, lined with tar, half a finger thick, and nailed upon "another half-finger thickness of hair, such as the white- limers use. Some hold opinion that the tar killeth the worm, others that the worm passing the sheathing, and seeking a way through, the hair and the tar so involve him, that he is choked therewith ; which, methinks, is most probable. This manner experience hath taught to be the best, and of least cost" (p. 80). 16 ENGLISH SEAMEN seems to have preserved the ship from this evil. He had, however, many difficulties to encounter before he could clear the straits. After he had the mouth open, and was in full hope of entering the South Sea on the morrow, a sudden storm carried him back, the current aiding it, above four and twenty leagues in twelve hours, " lying a-hull ". From the manner of some Indians with whom he had spoken in the morning, he now concluded that they intended to forewarn him of this, "for they have great insight in the change of weather; and, moreover," he thought, "have secret dealings with the prince of darkness, who many times declareth unto them things to come ". Some fortnight after, the ship, with a flaw from the shore, drove off in the channel, struck upon a rock, and hung there, having deep water both ahead and astern ; so that when the tide fell, her planks, in the midst, upon the upper deck, began to open. All efforts to warp her off were in vain, till the flood came, and she was then found to have beaten off great part of her sheathing, and " wrested across, like unto a hog's yoke, some four foot long and a foot square of her false stem, joining to the keel, which hindered her sailing very much". Of five anchors which he had brought from England he had now lost two, and two were disabled : bitter weather came on, with blustering and sharp winds, accompanied with rain and sleeting snow ; and his men mani- fested their wish to return to Brazil, and winter there, and so shoot the straits in the spring. But this he would not hear of, having Fenton's fortune in mind, and that of Cavendish in his last voyage, and knowing, by their experience and that of others, that if he consented to turn but one foot back, more than was of mere force, he should overthrow his voyage and lose his reputation ; " wherefore he resolved rather to lose his life than give ear to such counsel".* It was his wise policy to find amusement for his people at such times when they were not necessarily employed ; and this he did both during his long passage to Brazil and while he was detained in the straits. At leisure times, he trained them on the shore : one day there was the west-country sport of hurling, in which the bachelors played against the married men ; one day they were engaged in wrestling, another in shooting, "so that they were never idle," he says, "neither * Observations, 76-87. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 17 did they think the time long". One day they attempted to steal upon a great company of ursine seals, which he calls sea wolves,* as they lay sleeping on the shore, and enjoying the hot sun. Under -cover of a hill the men were even close upon them, when the seal centinel wakened the whole herd with his cry of alarm : the sailors got between a part of them and the sea ; but, instead of shunning the invaders, they came directly upon them, and ''not a man that withstood them escaped the overthrow; and after they had recovered the water, they did, as it were," he says, "scorn us, defied us, and danced before us ". Sometimes they collected pearls in considerable quantity from muscles : the pearls were small anr' of a bad colour, but the muscles exceeding good, and in great plenty, and proved a great refreshing. They gathered, also, the bark and fruit of a certain tree common in those parts : the seeds were much like good pepper but hotter, and the bark had " the savour of all kinds of spices together, most comfortable to the stomach, and was held to be better than any spice whatsoever ".j- At length, on the 28th of March, the evening being calm, and "a goodly clear on the eastern-board," Sir Richard ordered the anchor to be weighed, against the opinion of all his men, who were desirous to see the wind settled before they put out of harbour ; and he admitted that in part they had reason, "considering how they had been canvassed from place to place". He, however, made himself deaf to their murmur- ings ; having got into the channel, within an hour the wind came good : they sailed merrily on their voyage ; by daybreak the mouth of the straits was open, and in the afternoon they entered the South Sea, Hawkins congratulating himself upon having thus overcome the contradictions and murmurs of his own people, which he considered " of all calamities the greatest that can befall a man of discretion and valour, and the most difficult to be overcome ; for to require reason of the common sort is, as the philosopher saith, to seek counsel of a madman. The best remedy he could propound," he said, was " to wish our nation in this point to be well advised, and, in especial, all those that follow the sea, ever having before our eyes the ancient discipline of our predecessors ; who, in conformity * They are beneficial to man in their skins for many purposes, in their mostaches for picktooths, and in their fat to make train oil. t Observations, 75, 82, 88. 2 18 ENGLISH SEAMEN and obedience to their chiefs and commanders, have been a mirror to lall other nations; with patience, silence, and suffering, putting in execution what they have been com- manded, and thereby gaining the blessings due to such virtues, and leaving to posterity perpetual memories of their glorious victories : a just recompense for all such as conquer themselves, and subject their most specious wills to the will of their superiors." * On Easter-eve they anchored under the island of Mocha. f Hawkins was on his guard against the Indians here, because Drake had suffered severely by trusting them. It was neces- sary to communicate with them for the sake of obtaining refreshments ; but he would only confer with them upon a rock, compassed with water, and suffered none to be present with arms. While he was communing with the chiefs, some of the Indians came to the heads of his boats, and incautiously were allowed to enter them : there was a bad surf, so that the men, in order to keep the boats off, were forced to lay down their muskets, and the Indians perceiving this endeavoured to pour water into the barrels, taking it out of the sea in the hollow of their hands. Hawkins saw this in good time, and the caciques followed his example in speedily chastising them ; but he having obtained refi-eshments would hold no farther dealings with them. They were a prudent people, who would part with no hens among the poultry which they sold, and could not be induced to sell any of their llamas or sheep of burden, though they willingly disposed of those of the European breed. They were at war with the Spaniards, and therefore reasonably supposing that all who came in ships must be enemies, kindled fires at first sight of the Dainty, which were repeated upon the mainland to alarm the country. \ It was Hawkins's purpose not to discover himself upon this coast till he should have passed Lima ; but his company urged him to depart from this intention: their greediness of spoil * Observations^ gr, 92. t " Here our beef began to take end, and was then as good as the day we departed from England. It was preserved in pickle, which, though it be more chargeable, yet the profit payeth the charge, in that it is made durable, contrary to the opinion of many, which hold it impossible that beef should be kept good passing the equinoctial line " (p. 96). \ Observations, 96-99. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 19 "blinded them from forecasting the peril to which they ex- posed themselves by such a premature discovery " ; and he did not venture upon such a point, to assume an authority which he might not have been able to support. They made, therefore, for the port of Valparaiso ; and descrying at evening four ships at anchor there manned their boat : the Spaniards immediately ran the ships ashore ; they were taken possession of, and the captors longed for morning that they might ex- amine their supposed treasure, and also rifle the storehouses in the port. To their great disappointment they found nothing but stores of various kinds for Lima, good merchandise there, but to them of Uttle account. The owners proposed to ransom them, and he consented for a small price ; only he refused to part with the largest, because his people had taken it into their heads that there was much gold hidden in her. A fifth ship entered the harbour and fell into their hands ; and here " some good quantity of gold was found " : this put them in good humour ; insomuch, that they restored the vessel and the greater part of its loading to the two owners who were on board ; and though they detained one of them as a pilot on that coast, yet they soon set him ashore, "moved with compassion, for that he was a man charged with wife and children".* Here he supplied his want of anchors, though none of sufficient size were to be procured at that time in the ports of the South Sea, none larger, indeed, than could be brought across the isthmus upon negroes' backs ; and here, too, he furnished his ship with "a shift of cotton sails, far better in that sea where they have little rain and few storms than any of our double sails, though not good where rain and storms are frequent, for with the wet they grow so stiff that they cannot be handled ". The person with whom Hawkins negotiated for the ransom of the ships was an ancient captain of noble blood, who was about to sail for Lima, and carry his daughter thither to serve Do&a Teresa de Castro, sister to Don Beltran de Castro, and wife to the viceroy. Their apparel and divers other things were embarked in the larger ship ; but Hawkins restored the whole, in return for his good offices, and the confidence which he had shown, coming and going only in reliance on his word. In this as in a former instance he afterwards felt the benefit * This person proved thankful when Hawkins was a prisoner in Lima. 20 ENGLISH SEAMEN of having acted generously towards a generous enemy. Some six or eight days he spent in this port, treating of the ransom and lading provisions ; during which time he and the master of his ship, Hugh Cornish, "a most careful, orderly, and sufficient man," took little rest, because they knew their own weakness ; for when he entered the harbour, his ship's com- pany amounted to no more than seventy-five men and boys ; with which he had five ships to guard, each moored apart. And the Governor of Chili, Don Alonso de Sotomayor, an old soldier of much experience, who had served in the Low Countries, was on the shore in sight of them, with 300 horse and foot (as was afterwards known) in ambush, if they had landed, and with balsas ready to have taken advantage of any unwariness in guarding the ships. Hawkins, though ignorant of this, well knew that all his vigilance was needed ; but he feared not the enemy so much as the wine, which, notwith- standing all the diligence and precaution he could use night and day, overthrew, he says, many of his people. He calls it a foul fault, " being too common among seamen ; and de- serving some rigorous punishment with severity to be executed, as being daily the destruction of many good enterprises" ; and he declares that, if he might be hired with many thousands, he would not carry with him a man known to put his felicity in that vice. His own vigilance, however, preserved him here from danger ; and when all was done they set sail, " with reputation among their enemies, and a good portion toward their charges, and their ship as well stored and victualled as the day they departed from England ".* From Valparaiso he sailed for Coquimbo and entered the port, hoping to find some shipping there ; but in this he was disappointed, and was not strong enough to make any attempt upon the town which was half a league inland. Leaving Chili now for the coast of Peru, his men demanded their third of the gold that had been taken. He represented to them that it was not easy to divide the bars, but if divided very easy to be robbed of them ; that many would play away their portions, and return home as beggarly as they came out ; and, moreover, that the shares could not well be apportioned be- fore they reached England, because every man's deserts could not be appreciated and rewarded till the end of the voyage. * Observations^ 100-103. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 21 With much difficulty they were brought to consent that the gold and silver should be deposited in chests with three keys to each, of which he was to have one in his keeping, the master another, and the third, some person whom they should nominate. Frauds were so commonly practised upon the seamen, that there was but too much reason for the suspicion * which they manifested at this time ; but they made too sure of their booty, in reckoning their shares before it was safely brought home. Sir Richard ascribed the misfortune which soon befell him * •• The bad correspondence used by many captains and owners with their companies upon their return, defrauding them, or diminishing their rights, hath hatched many jealousies, and produced many disorders, with the overthrow of all good discipline ; for where the soldier and mariner is unpaid or defrauded, what service or obedience can be required at his hands ? The greatest robbery of all, in my opinion, is the defrauding or detaining of the company's thirds, or wages, accursed by the just God who forbiddeth wages to sleep with us. To such I speak as either abuse themselves in detaining it, or else to such as force the poor man to sell it at vile and low prices; and, lastly, to such as upon feigned cavils and suits do deter the simple and ignorant sort from their due prosecutions ; which being too much in use amongst us, hath bred in those that follow the sea a jealousy in all employments, and many times causeth mutinies and infinite inconveniences " {Sir R. Hawkins's Observations, etc., log, no). He then speaks of the abuses committed under the colour of lawful pillage, and shows that in this respect many captains and governors were as bad as the men. " Some of these cause the bills of lading to be cast into the sea, or so to be hidden that they never appear. Others send away their prisoners (who sometimes are more worth than the ship and her lading), because they should not discover their secret stolen treasure ; for many times that which is left out of the register, or bills of lading, with purpose to defraud the prince of his customs (in their conceits held to be excessive), is of much more value than that which the ship and lading is worth. Yea, I have known ships worth 200,000/. and better, clean swept of their principal riches, nothing but the bare bulk being left unsacked. To prevent these mischiefs my father. Sir John Hawkins, in his instructions, in actions under his charge, had this particular article ; that whosoever took any ship should be bound to exhibit the bills of lading, to keep the captain, master, merchants, and persons of account, and to bring them to him to be examined, or into England, if they should be by any accident separated from him. Whatsoever was found wanting, the prisoners being examined, was to be made good by the captain and company which took the ship, and this upon great punishments. I am witness that this course did redound much to the benefit of the general stock, to the satisfaction of her majesty and counsel, the justification of her government, and' the content of her followers" {Sir R. Hawkins's Obstrvationst etc., 113). 22 ENGLISH SEAMEN to his having steered for Valparaiso * in compliance with the wishes of his people.-|- The Spaniards ascribed it to his own imprudence in ransoming the ships which he found there, instead of following Drake's example, who burnt the shipping along the coast, that no intelligence of him might be con- veyed by sea ; but in imputing this to any over-confidence J in his own strength they did him wrong. Advices were despatched with all possible speed both by sea and land to the Viceroy of Peru, Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, Marques de Canete. The first arrived by sea. The marquis, who was confined to his bed by the gout, rose immediately upon re- ceiving them, and gave orders for protecting the port of Callao : for this purpose three captains were ordered to levy a hundred men each, wherewith to man three ships, that with all speed were to be sent in pursuit of the pirate, for by that appellation the English commander was called, though the two countries were now at open war. His next care was to send the alarm to all the ports upon the coast, to Guatimala also, and to Mexico, and to Panama. His brother-in-law, Don Beltran de Castro, was appointed to the command of the * Admiral Burney observes upon this, that •• if he had kept at a distance from the coast till to the north of Lima, other prudential reasons might then have occurred for preserving that distance in their farther progress northward, and the object of their undertaking have been defeated, with- out any opportunity of success. With so small a force as Sir Richard Hawkins commanded, it seems evident that an expeditious scouring of the coast would have been the most proper plan to have pursued. Cele- rity, however, was neglected" (ii., 127). \ Arauco Domado, 307. Hechos de D. Garcia Hurtado, 212. I " Vino a concierto con el pueblo en razon del rescate de las naves, sin reparar en si era acertado, o no, dexar libre aquien pudiesse dar aviso de su venida; tal era la estimacion en que tenia su vaxel, (por extremo armado y guarnecido de gente platico, y de hecho), y tampoco el caso que hazia de las fuerzas maritimas de todo el Peru " (Suarez de Figueroa, 202). The Chilese poet, Pedro de Ona, censures him with more justice for having wasted time there after he had taken ♦• La rica pesca ; Porque ser^ de veyute mil dorados, Con otras deferencias de pescados. Mas no sabra el Ingles lo que se pesca, Que alii estara perdiendo el aura fresca, Y dando larga cuerda a sus soldados ; Que no la dar le fuera mas cordura, Pues desto ha de nacer su desventura " — Arauco Domado, f. 307. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 88 squadron : public opinion answered so well to his exertions, that many volunteers presented themselves, and there were two hidalgos who embarked each with ten men raised at his own cost. In eight days the three galleons were ready for sea, two of them carrying twenty brass guns, and the third thirty-four. The marquis went to visit them himself before their departure, well pleased at so fair an opportunity of signalising his administration. They were scarcely out of sight before intelligence came that Hawkins had been seen with three ships off Arica : it was thought, therefore, that he had been joined by his comrades which had been supposed to be lost, and farther preparations were deemed necessary, seeing that in the port of Callao there were some thirty vessels which any armed boat might have captured. The guards on the shore accordingly were strengthened, and another galleon, a brigantine, and a galizabra equipped, as well for the defence of the ships, as to reinforce the squadron, if it should put back in need of repairs.* The ships which had been seen in Hawkins's company were the prize which he had brought from Valparaiso, and a smaller vessel captured near Arica. The former was found very leaky, and his people being "satisfied that their hope to find any- thing of worth in her was vain, having searched her from port to stem," they burnt her, their number not being enough to bear any division, more than of mere necessity : the other they kept, intending to make her serve as a pinnace. With this pinnace and their boat they ranged the bay of Pisco without success ; and shortly afterwards, about the middle of May, at daybreak, Hawkins came in sight of the Spanish squadron, being some two leagues to windward of it, but with little or no wind. The pinnace being furnished with oars came to him, and though his first thought had been to abandon her, it was held more advisable to keep her as long as they could, and that if it came " to likelihood of boarding," she should lay the boat aboard, enter all her men, and from thence enter the ship, and so to be forsaken. They then prepared for action, "praying," says Sir Richard, "unto the Lord God of battles for his help and our deliverance, and putting ourselves wholly into his hands. About 9 a.m. the breeze began to blow, and we to stand off into the sea, the * Observations, 21^-215, 24 ENGLISH SEAMEN Spaniards cheek by jowl with us, ever getting to the wind- ward upon us, for that the shipping of the South Sea is moulded sharp under water and long, all their voyages de- pending upon turning to windward, and the breeze blowing ever southerly." * The Spanish squadron consisted of three galleons, ■[• and three smaller vessels. As the sun rose the wind freshened, which coming from the west, together with the swell that ever beats upon that coast, caused a chopping sea, "where- with," says Hawkins, "the admiral of the Spaniards snapt his mainmast asunder, and so began to lag astern, and with him other two ships. The vice-admiral split her mainsail, being come within shot of us upon our broadside, but to leewards : the rear-admiral cracked her mainyard asunder in the midst, being ahead of us ; one of the Armada which had gotten upon the broadside of us to windward durst not assault us. With these disgraces upon them, and the hand of God helping and delivering us, we began to consult what course was best to be taken to free ourselves. The admiral with other two were astern of us some four leagues ; the rear-admiral in a manner right ahead, within culverine shot ; and one upon our luff within shot also ; the moon was to rise within two hours. After much debating, it was concluded that we should bear up before the wind, and seek to escape between the admiral and the vice-admiral, which we put in execution, not knowing of any other disgrace befallen them, but that of the rear-admiral, till after our surrender. In the morning, at break of day, we were clear of all our enemies, and so shaped our course along the coast for the bay of Atacames, where we purposed to trim our pinnace, and to renew our wood and water, and so to depart upon our voyage with all possible speed." J It does not appear that the Dainty suffered anything from * Observations, 107. t Six ships, Sir Richard says, with well near 2000 men. Suarez de Fi- gueroa mentions only the three galleons ; but the Chilese poet confirms Sir Richard's statement : — " Apercibio en tres fuertes galeones Quanto era menester para el intento, Poniendo en orden otros tres patajes, Que puedan yr sirviendoles de pages." — Arauco Domado, f. 316. X Observations, 218, 219. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 25 the weather, though the Spanish ships sustained so much injury that they put back to Callao, and the gale which dis- abled them was represented as one of the most violent storms that had ever been known in those parts.* The condition in which they returned might have convinced any reasonable persons that no blame could fairly be imputed to them for having failed in the object of their pursuit ; but expectation had been raised so high by the unusual spirit which the Government had manifested, and the still more unusual ac- tivity of its preparations, that the women of Callao and Lima reviled the soldiers, as cowards, when they landed : those of the lower order insulted them by strutting about with daggers and pistols at their sides ; they even asked the viceroy to let them embark instead of those poltroons, and engaged that they would bring in the English pirate.f These unmerited reproaches wrought such an effect upon the men that they vowed to follow Hawkins to England, rather than return again without him, and be exposed to such dishonour.]: As it had now been ascertained that Hawkins had only his own ship, so large a squadron was not thought necessary : one of the galleons, therefore, was refitted forthwith, and, with the galizabra, which was an excellent vessel though small, and a launch, was deemed force sufficient. The preparations were made with such haste lest the enemy should escape, that many boats were staved upon the stony beach, and many persons killed or maimed, and more would have been lost, if the viceroy had not personally set the example of going into the water to assist them.§ * The Spaniards say that Hawkins was obliged to throw his booty overboard in this storm. (Pedro de Ona, f. 333). He says no such thing himself, — but it may very possibly have been convenient to his captors to say so (Suarez de Figueroa, 216). t This is twice remarked by Pedro de Ona. " Con una brevedad jamas pensada, (A lo que de esta tierra se entendia, Y aun a lo que en Espana ser podia) Se puso a punto, y orden el armada." — Arauco Dontado, f. 321. And again, *' Buelvo a dezir que es cosa estraiia y nueva, El ver aca en las Indias despachada, No mas que a buelta de ojos una armada, Como esta, con la maquina que Ueva." — Ibid., f. 322. X Observations, 118. § Figueroa, 217. 26 ENGLISH SEAMEN Hawkins, meantime, holding on his course, captured a ship some fifty leagues north of Lima, took what provisions he required out of her, and then burnt her : the crew he put ashore near Truxillo, reserving only their pilot and a Greek, both at their own request ; for they were afraid to land, having broken the law by weighing anchor from the port of Santa before it was known that the coast was clear. He had manned his pinnace and boat to search the port of Payta, when he had sight of a tall ship : this vessel having heard that he was on the coast, thought herself safer at sea than in the harbour, and had got under sail for that reason. Hawkins chased her all night and all the next day, but finally she es- caped, for the Dainty was but a slow sailer; "a very bad quality for a ship engaged in such an expedition". Two other vessels in like manner outsailed him, and one of them "entreated his pinnace badly," when it was seen that the Dainty could not get up to support her; yet the Spaniards were so alarmed that they threw their despatches into the sea, and cast out great part of their lading, " for the ships in the South Sea, presuming upon the security from storms, load themselves like lighters or sand barges". On the 10th of June, he put into the bay of Atacames, about 260 leagues from Lima ; and supposing themselves safe from any im- mediate pursuit, they stopped there to take in wood and water, and to repair the pinnace : this being done, they proposed to depart on the morning of the 18th, but on the preceding evening a sail was seen in the offing, and Hawkins at the importunity of his captain and company allowed the pinnace to give her chase, "which I should not have done," says he, "for it was our destruction". He gave the men precise orders, that if they did not return the same night, they should seek him at Cape San Francisco, seven leagues off. Accordingly, at nine on the following morning he weighed anchor and stood for that cape: after beating on and off two days without sight of the pinnace, he returned to the bay, where he descried her turning in without a mainmast, which had been carried away by their imprudent management in a squall. Nor was this their only misfortune ; for standing in with the shore after the accident, they had mistaken the land, and, fancying themselves to windward of the bay, bore up, and put into the bay of St. Matthew, from whence, when they discovered their error, they had to "bring their tacks SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 27 aboard, and turn and tide it up as they could ". Two days were lost in repairing the damage, and on the morrow they were to set sail, and "leave the coast of Peru and Quito".* At daylight, the Dainty and her pinnace began to weigh their anchor, " to quit a station in which they had remained too long". As they were loosing their sails, a man from the mast-head descried two large ships and a small barque, near the cape, steering toward the bay. By the course they kept, Hawkins presently understood who they were : his men made them to be the fleet bound for Panama, and laden with treasure, and importuned him to "cut sail in all haste, and stand with them " ; but he well knew that no shipping would stir upon that coast till they were sure he had left it, unless they were sent to seek him, and that this was not the time of year for the treasure ships. Moreover he represented that in remaining at anchor he kept the weather-gage ; whereas if he got under sail, it being ebb tide, he should give them the advantage which was now his, by reason of the point of the bay : nothing was lost if they should prove to be merchant- men, for they were standing directly toward him ; and should it prove to be the Armada, time was gained for preparing themselves the better to fight. Thus he reasoned with them ; but they, " altogether without reason, or against reason, broke out, some into vaunting and bragging, some into reproaches for want of courage, others into wishings that they had never come out of their country, if they should refuse to fight with any two ships whatsoever. And to mend the matter," says Sir Richard, "the gunner for his part assured me, that with the first tire of shot he would lay one of them in the suds ; and our pinnace that she would take the other to task. One promised that he would cut down their mainyard, another that he would take their flag. To some I turned the deaf ear ; with others I dissembled, soothing and animating them to the execution of what they promised : and to give them better satisfaction, I condescended that our captain, with a competent number of men, should go with the pinnace to discover them, giving them strict orders that they should not engage themselves in that manner, as they might not be able to come to us, nor we to succour them. In all these divisions and opinions, our master, Hugh Cornish (who was a most * Observations ^ 119-125. Burney, 129, 130. 28 ENGLISH SEAMEN sufficient man for government and valour, and well saw the errors of the multitude), used his office as became him ; and so did all those of best understanding." * The pinnace soon discovered what they were, and they chased her back, " gunning at her " all the way. Sir Richard then stood out of the bay to meet them, that he " might have sea-room to fight ". He hoped to keep the weather-gage ; " but the wind," says he, " scanting with us and larging with them, we were forced to leeward ; and the admiral,-]- weather- ing us, came down upon us ; which, being within musket- shot, we hailed first with our noise of trumpets, then with our waytes, and after with our artillery, which they answered with artillery, two for one ; for they had double the ordnance we had, and almost ten men for one. Immediately they came shoring aboard of us, upon our lee-quarter, contrary to our ex- pectation and the custom of men-of-war ; and, doubtless, had our gunner been the man he was reputed to be, and as the world sold him to me, she had received great hurt by that manner of boarding: but, contrary to all expectation, our stern pieces were unprimed, and so were all those which we had to leeward. Hereby all men are to take warning by me, not to trust any man in such extremities when he himself may see it done : this was my oversight, this my overthrow. For I, and all my company, had that satisfaction of the sufficiency and care of our gunner, as not any one of us ever imagined there would be any defect found in him. For my part, I, with the rest of our officers, occupied ourselves in clearing our decks, lacing our nettings, making of bulwarks, arming our tops, fitting our waste- clothes, tallowing our pikes, slinging our yards, doubling our sheets and tacks, placing and ordering our people, and procuring that they should be well fitted and provided of all things ; leaving the artillery and other instru- ments of fire to the gunner's disposal and order, with the rest of his mates and adherents ; which (as I said) was part of our perdition. For bearing me ever in hand that he had 500 cartridges in readiness, within one hour's fight we were forced to occupy three persons only in making and filling cartridges ; and of 500 ells of canvass and other cloth given him for that * Observations, 125, 126. Burney, 130. t " Aviendola ganado el barlovento, Ganancia en estos juegos de momento." — Arauco Dotnado, f. 337. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 29 purpose at sundry times, not one yard was to be found. For this we had no excuse ; and, therefore, could not avoid the danger to charge and discharge with the ladle, especially in so hot a fight. Those instruments of fire wherein he had made me to spend excessively before our going to sea now appeared not, neither the brass balls of artificial fire, to be shot with slurbows (whereof I had six bows and 200 balls, and which are of great account and service, either by sea or land) : he had stowed them in such manner (though in double barrels) as the salt water had spoiled them all ; so that coming to use them, not one was serviceable." In fine, the man proved as inefficient in action as he had been negligent in his office before ; and was either so conscious of his incapacity, so cowardly, or so false,* that Sir Richard himself, and the master of the ship, "were forced to play the gunners ".f. The pinnace had advanced so far that she was in danger of being cut off: coming to lay the Dainty aboard, the vice- admiral was close up with her, and some of the men entered their own ship over the enemy's bowsprit. Hawkins says they were not a little comforted when they got their people on board, for they were but three score and fifteen in all, men and boys, when the action began, and the Spaniards were 1300, "little more or less, and those of the choice of Peru". The Spanish commander, Don Beltran de Castro, had had no naval experience, but Don Miguel Angel Felipon, who had for many years had the command at sea | on that coast, was associated with him. Twice in the course of the day the enemy were beaten off; towards evening they made a third attempt, having concerted that the capitana (or admiral) * " Some of our company," says Hawkins, " had him in suspicion to be more friend to the Spaniards than to us, for that he had served some years in the Terceras as gunner, and that he did all this of purpose. Few of our pieces were clear when we came to use them, and some had the shot first put in, and after the powder. Besides, after our surrendry, it was laid to his charge that he should say he had a brother that served the king in Peru, and that he thought he was in the armada, and how he would not for all the world he should be slain. Whether this were true or no, I know not ; but I am sure all in general gave him an ill report, and that he in whose hands the chief execution of the whole fight con- sisted, executed nothing as was promised and expected." i Observations, 126, 127. X Hawkins calls him general of the South Sea, for the carriage and waftage of the silver from Lima to Panama. No doubt this is the person whose name was used by Drake in the harbour of Callao (see p. 147). so ENGLISH SEAMEN should approach upon the weatherbow, and fall aboard the Dainty upon her broadside ; and that the vice-admiral should lay his ship upon the capitana's weather-quarter, and reinforce her with men, or act otherwise, as occasion might require. Not waiting to observe this order, the vice-admiral, eager to secure the credit for his own company, came to windward on the English ship's broadside : he paid dearly for this rashness ; for " being utterly without fights or defences, the English, what with their muskets and what with their fireworks, cleared his decks in a moment " ; and Hawkins says, that if he had then had but a dozen men to have entered her, she might have been carried : " but our company," he adds, " being few, and the principal of them slain or hurt, we durst not ; neither was it wisdom to adventure the separation of those which remained " : so it was held for the best and soundest resolu- tion to keep their force together in defence of their own. In this attempt the vice-admiral lost six and thirty men, including his pilot. The admiral came to his assistance, and brought him off, not without loss himself; and this third lesson made the enemy determine upon the course which from the first they ought to have taken, — to make use of their artillery only, and either sink the Dainty ^ or compel her to strike. This they " put in execution, placing themselves within a musket-shot of her weather-quarter, and sometimes on her broadside," and thus continually playing upon her without intermission, "which was, doubtless, the best and securest determination they could take".* Meantime the English had lost many men. Of the two persons on whom Hawkins principally relied for the prosecu- tion of the voyage, in case of his own sickness or death, one was mortally wounded, the other slain ; and he himself had received six wounds, " one in the neck, very perilous ; another through the arm, perishing the bone, and cutting the sinews close by the arm-pit ".f At times, the Spaniards parleyed, * Observations, 132, 135, 136. + The Chilese poet says that Hawkins himself seized the admiral's standard, and that Don Diego de Avila, from whose hand Mars himself could not have wrested it, defended it, with five others, so well that the Englishmen came badly off. " Supo con otros cinco defendello De suerte que el Ingles salio mal dello." — Arauco Domado. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 31 and invited them to surrender, promising them the usages of good war. The captain of the Dainty "came, with some other," to Sir Richard, and, in the whole company's name, urged him to accept of these terms, saying that "scarcely any men were left to traverse the guns, or oppose themselves for defence, if the enemy should board with them again". Hawkins was in a state of extreme suffering, believing himself to be at the point of death : he roused himself, however, so as to protest * against any such opinion, and to entreat his people that they would not commit themselves to the mercy, or trust the promises of the Spaniards, who had so often broken their faith, and who either put their English prisoners to death as pirates, or, which was worse, delivered them over to the In- quisition. This argument had its due weight with them : the captain declared that he entirely agreed in opinion with him, " and had only made the proposal in condescension to others ; and all who were present vowed either to remain freemen, or sell their lives at a price which the enemy would not be There were various reports concerning this, some saying that it was another English officer who laid hold of the standard, rather by chance than design, others that Hawkins " El mismo por las suyas le echa mano Valiendose de un lazo." — Ibid. I am not sure that 1 interpret this rightly in supposing it to mean that he threw a noose (the Indian lasso) over it ; but the anecdote, as relating to Sir Richard, is altogther false ; and this circumstance, which, if the rest were true, might seem to cast a suspicion over it, is likely enough to have been reported and believed in Peru. Suarez de Figueroa gives the same account, p. 218. The poet admits that all his details here are doubtful. " Fuera de que ninguno niega en ello Que padeciesse fuerza el estandarte, Y que esto fue en el tiempo que Richarte Saco de un arcabuz herido el cuello : Y aunque se alabasse menos dello, Un fiero pedreiial por otra parte, A la misma sazon le dio en un brazo, Dexandole sin carne gran pedazo." — Arauco Domado^ f. 339, 340. Pedro de Oiia concludes his poem in the middle of this action. He promised a second part, but it never appeared. Two editions of the first were published, both at Madrid, in 1596 and 1608. Both are exceedingly scarce. My copy (which has the arms of the Gana family on the bind- ing) is of the later edition. * In his book he has given what he said in the form of an oration. It is remarkable that so judicious a man should not have perceived that no oration could ever have been more unfitly introduced. 32 ENGLISH SEAMEN willing to pay for them. With this resolution," says Sir Richard, ''both captain and company took their leave of me, every one particularly, and the greater part with tears and embracings, as though we were forthwith to depart this world, and never see one the other again, but in heaven, — promising never more to speak of surrendry." * True to this determination, they continued the action through the night : an hour before daybreak, the enemy edged off ''to breathe, and to remedy such defects as were amiss". This "time of interdiction" the English employed in "repairing their sails and tacklings, stopping their leaks, fishing and wolling their masts and yards, mending their pumps, and fitting and providing themselves for the day to come ". Little as the interval was wherein so much was to be done, " yet gave it great relief and comfort to them, and made them better able to endure the defence ; for, otherwise, the ship must have sunk before its surrender, having many shot under water, and the pumps shot to pieces ". When the action was renewed on the second day, the vice-admiral came upon their quarter, and a shot from one of the stern pieces carried away his mainmast close by the deck: this brought the admiral to his assistance. If the Dainty had been a better sailer she might at this time have escaped ; "I- and if Hawkins had not been incapable of giving any directions, good use might have been made of the time while one of the enemy was thus disabled : but he knew nothing of what passed; "neither," he says, "was I able to direct, though I had known it, being in a manner senseless, what with my wounds, and what with the agony of the surrendry proposed ; for that I had seldom known it spoken of but that it came afterwards to be put in execution. And so we stood away from them, which we should not have done, but have prose- cuted the occasion, and brought ourselves close upon her weather-gage, and with our great and small shot have hindered them from repairing their harms : if we had thus done, they had been forced to cut all by the board ; and, it may be, lying a-hull, or to leeward of us, we might have sunk her. At the least it would have declared to our enemies that we had them in little estimation, when, able to go from them, we would not ; and, perhaps, have been a cause to have made * Observations, 143-147. f Burney, 130. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 33 them leave us. But this occasion was let slip:" so was the opportunity of getting the weather-gage ; and while they vainly endeavoured to make off, the Spaniards had time to ^ repair their damage, so as again to come up with them, and renew the fight.* The action continued through the second night : before daybreak there was the same intermission as on the preced- ing day ; but there had been no interval for rest, nor had the men on either side taken any other refreshment than bread and wine, of which latter the English took too largely. Ip other respects they behaved like Englishmen ; and had they been under better discipline, and not deprived of their best officers, it seems probable that, even against so great a superi- ority of force, they might have proved victorious ; their artillery, ''being of greater bore, was of better effect for sinking and spoiling". But the enemy had the weather- gage : his guns, therefore, told with terrible effect ; and, on the afternoon of the third day, ''the Dainty had fourteen shot under water, seven or eight foot of water in the hold, the sails all torn, the masts all perished, and the pumps shot to pieces " : many of her crew had fallen, and most of the survivors were wounded ; for under the excitement of wine they had exposed themselves madly -j- to the Spanish mus- * Observations, 147-149. t Sir Richard mentions '• two things, which were most prejudicial unto us, and the principal causes of our perdition, the errors and faults of late days, crept in among those who follow the sea, and learned from the Flemings and Easterlings. The one is to fight unarmed where they may fight armed; the other is, on coming to fight, to drink themselves drunk. Yea, some are so mad, that they mingle powder with wine, to give it the greater force ; imagining that it giveth spirit, strength, and courage, and taketh away all fear and doubt. The latter is, for the most part, true ; but the former is false and beastly, and altogether against reason. In fights, all receipts which add courage and spirit are of great regard to be allowed and used ; and so is a draught of wine to be given to every man before he come to action : but more than enough is pernicious ; for, exceeding the measure, it offendeth and enfeebleth the senses, converting the strength, which should resist the force of the enemy, into weakness : it dulleth and blindeth the understanding, and consequently depriveth any man of true valour ; for that he is disenabled to judge and apprehend the occasion which may be offered to assault and retire in time convenient, the reins of reason being put into the hands of passion and disorder. After I was wounded this nimium bred great disorder and inconvenience in our ship : the pot continually walking, infused desperate and foolish hardiness in many, who, blinded with the fume of the liquor, considered not of any 3 34 ENGLISH SEAMEN keteers. The Spaniards still offered "good war, life and liberty, and an embarkation to England ". All were now of opinion that it was best to accept these terms before the ship sunk, seeing that unless a miracle were wrought in their ^ behalf by God's almighty power, it was impossible by any other way to expect deliverance or life. Hawkins could no longer refuse his assent : he had nothing to hope from the surrender, desperate as his wounds appeared to be, but for that very reason he might the better consent to it, having done his duty to the uttermost. A flag of truce was, there- fore, hoisted in place of the ensign ; and a Spanish prisoner, who had kept in the hold during the action, was despatched to tell Don Beltran de Castro that if he would give his word and oath for the observance of these terms, the ship should be surrendered ; otherwise every man would die fighting."^ Some difficulty occurred before this message could be delivered. Upon sight of the flag of truce the Spaniards wished the Dainty to hoist out her boat; but it had been danger, but thus and thus would stand at hazard ; some in vainglory vaunting themselves ; some other railing upon the Spaniards ; another inviting his companion to come and stand by him, and not to budge a foot from him ; which cost the lives of many a good man, slain by our enemies' musketeers, who suffered not a man to show himself, but they presently overthrew him with speed and watchfulness." He says also that though he had " great preparation of armour, as well of proof, as of light corselets, not a man would use them " ; and this he calls " great madness and a lamentable fault, worthy to be banished from among all reasonable people, and well to be weighed by all commanders". In his opinion armour was more necessary by sea than by land; for on shore the bullet only hurteth, but in a ship he had seen the splinters kill and hurt many at once, when the shot passed without touching any per- son. The greatest care of the Spaniards was to be well armed : "he who cannot come to the price of a corselet will have a coat of mail, a jacket, at least a buff jerkin, or;a privy coat; and hardly v^ill they be found with- out it, albeit they live and serve in extreme hot countries ". Had it not been for these errors, he thought that the Dainty might, perhaps, have freed here, "for our close fights were such as we were secure, and they open to us ; and what with our cubridge heads, one answering the other, our hatches upon bolts, our brackes in our decks and gunner-room, it was impossible to take us as long as any competent number of men had remained : twenty persons would have sufficed for defence ; and for this such ships are called impregnable, and are not to be taken but by surrender, nor to be overcome but with boarding or sink- ing, as in us by experience was verified " (pp, 150, 151). * Observations, iSy^SS- SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 35 shot all to pieces, and so had theirs. They then called to the English to amain their sails, which could not be done because they were slung, and there were not men enough left to hand them. Meantime the vice-admiral coming upon the Daifiti/s quarter, and not knowing what had passed, fired two of his chase pieces, wounded the captain very sore in the thigh, and maimed one of the master's mates. He ceased to fire as soon as he knew that the flag of surrender had been hoisted ; and when the Spaniards understood that the English could neither hoist out a boat nor strike their sails, the admiral laid them aboard. Before any man entered the Spanish prisoner made his way to the general. He was received with great courtesy ; and Don Beltran, in answer to his message, said that he received the commander and his people a buena guerra, to the laws of fair war and quarter : he swore, by the Almighty's name, and by his habit of Alcantara, the green cross of which order he wore upon his breast, that he would give them their lives with good treatment, and send them as speedily as he could to their own country. Hawkins had required some pledge for confirmation, and, as such, Don Beltran took off his glove and sent it to him.* Sir Richard always believed that it was Don Beltran's in- tention honourably and faithfully to perform all that he had engaged for. "Lest some insolency," he says, "might be offered to me by the common soldiers, who seldom have respect to any person on such occasions, especially in the case I was, he sent a principal captain, brought up long time in Flanders, called Pedro Alvares de Pulgar, to take care of me, and while the ships were on aboard the other to bring me into his ship, which he accomplished with great humanity and courtesy, despising the bars of gold that were shared be- fore his face, which he might alone have enjoyed if he would ; and truly he was, as after I found by trial, a true captain, — a man worthy of any charge, and of the noblest condition that I have known any Spaniard. The general received me with great courtesy and compassion, even with tears in his eyes, and words of great consolation, and commanded me to be accommodated in his own cabin, where he sought to cure and comfort me the best he could. The like he did with all our hurt men." The number killed Sir Richard has not * Observations, 156. 36 ENGLISH SEAMEN mentioned : the wounded, who survived the first day, were nearly forty, and of these every man recovered.* The Spaniards were so eagerly employed in ransacking their prize that they had nearly lost her : her mainmast fell by the board ; and the water increased so fast in the hold, that it was necessary immediately to send a large party of able men, who, by great exertion, saved her from sinking, and in six and thirty hours so far repaired her that they could make with her for Perico, the port of Panama, that, though more than 200 leagues distant, being the nearest place to leeward where their wants could be supplied. They anchored there, some two leagues from the town, about three weeks after the action : as soon as Don Beltran had advised the audience of his success, orders were given that '^bonfires should be made, and every man put luminaries in their houses, according to the fashion used by the Spaniards on their great holydays, or for glad tidings ; so that with the lights in their churches, in their windows and galleries, and in the corners of their houses, the city, being close by the sea-shore, appeared in the distance, when night came on, to those on board, as though it had been in flames". During their passage f to this place Sir Richard heard *"The thing," says Hawkins, "that ought to move us to give the Almighty especial thanks and praises was that they were cured in a man- ner without instruments or salves." Considering what the instruments and salves in those days were, this explains why the wounded recovered : — " For the chests were all broken to pieces, and many of their simples and compounds thrown into the sea ; those which remained were such as were thrown about the ship in broken pots and bags ; which, at the end of three days, were, by the general's orders, sought and gathered together. These, with some instruments of small moment procured from those who had reserved them to a different end, did not only serve for our cure, but also for the curing of the Spaniards, being many more than those of our company" (p. 159). Suarez de Figueroa says, that the English were 120 in number ; of whom twenty-seven were killed, and seventeen wounded. The loss of the Spaniards he states at twenty-eight killed and twenty-two wounded. + Miguel Angel one day asked Sir Richard " for what purpose the little short arrows served, which were found aboard his ship in so great quantity. I satisfied him that they were for our muskets. They are not as yet in use among the Spaniards, yet of singular effect and execution, as our enemies confessed ; for the upper work of their ships being musket proof, in all places they passed through both sides with facility, and wrought ex- traordinary disasters, which caused admiration to see themselves wounded with small shot, when they thought themselves secure, and by no means could find where they entered, nor come to the sight of any of the shot. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 37 enough to make him fear that the terms on which he had surrendered were hkely to be disregarded. There were some who censured the general for giving such good treatment to Lutherans, with whom they said no faith was to be kept. And there were some who maintained that men, who had fought like good soldiers, deserved good quarter, even these ; and Don Beltran himself held all English men of war to be pirates. He flattered himself that he had succeeded in satis- fying them on this point ; and establishing that men, acting under their sovereign's commission against an enemy, with whom there was open war, were entitled to all the honourable usages comprehended under the title of good war. A discus- sion afterward arose upon what that term imported, and Sir Richard's opinion was required, which he, not without some apprehension that a bait might be laid to entrap him, at length gave to this eifect ; that he had ever understood it to secure for the prisoner not only his life and good treatment, but also that he should not be urged to anything contrary to his conscience as touching religion, nor be seduced or menaced from his allegiance, but rather to be ransomed for his month's pay, this being what he had known practised in his time among all civil and noble nations. And the English had enlarged it in one point more toward those Spaniards who had rendered them upon the terms of buena gueira, delivering them without ransom : " but the covetousness of our age," he pursued, " hath brought on many abuses, and excluded the principal officers from partaking the benefit of this privilege, in leaving them to the discretion of the victor, being many times poorer than the common soldiers, their qualities considered, whereby they are commonly put to more than the ordinary ransom ; and not being able of themselves to accomplish it, are forgotten of their princes, and sometimes suffer long imprisonment, which they should not". Don Beltran bade him not trouble him- self concerning the last point ; and gave him his word that if the king left him to his disposal, as of right he belonged, his Hereof they proved to profit themselves after ; but for that they wanted the tampkins, which are first to be driven home before the arrow be put in ; and as they understood not the secret, they rejected them as uncer- tain, and therefore not to be used. But of all the shot used now-a-days, for the annoying of an enemy in fight by sea, few are of greater moment for many respects, which I hold not convenient to treat of in public ". (p. 164). 38 ENGLISH SEAMEN ransom (if any were thought due) should be only a couple of greyhounds for himself, and another couple for his brother the Conde da Lemos.* Don Beltran showed Sir Richard a letter from the King of Spain to the viceroy, giving him an accurate account of his intended voyage, the ships, their burthen, and their force, artillery and men. Hereby the Spaniard told him he might discern whether the king had friends in England, and good and speedy advice of all that concerned him there. Sir Richard replied it was no wonder, for he had plenty of gold, which worked stranger effects than this, and his expedition was public and notorious to all the kingdom. ■(- He learnt here that the Viceroy of Mexico had fitted out an armada to seek him and to defend the coast. Here, too, he had the mortification to hear that his poor ship, which had received her Dainty name from the lips of Queen Elizabeth herself, had imposed on her, with all solemnity, the Spanish and Roman Catholic name of La Visitacion, having been captured on the day of that festival, by the Roman style. She was shored up at the time ; and in the midst of the ceremony the props on one side gave way, and she fell over, "entreating many of them that were in her very badly". Here Sir Richard ends the account of his unfortunate voyage. What happened to him and to the rest during their imprisonment, with the rarities and particularities of the Peru and Tierra-firma, his voyage to Spain, and what happened to him in prison both in Peru, Tercera, Seville, and Madrid ; these things, " I leave," said he, " for a second part of this discourse, if God give life and convenient place and rest, necessary for so tedious and troublesome a work ; desiring God that is Almighty to give his blessing to this and the rest of my intentions, that it and they may be fruitful to his glory and the good of all : then shall my desires be accom- plished, and I account myself most happy ".| This intention he had delayed too long ; for having some business in the year 1622, while the first part was in the press, to attend the privy council, he died suddenly of an apoplectic stroke, in one of the outer rooms.§ It may seem remarkable that he should have postponed this duty so long, for as a duty he regarded * Observations, 162, 163. flbid.^ 168. Xlhid., 169. § Prince. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 89 it,* The cause, probably, was not merely that it was a painful task, and there was a part of it in which, however satisfied in his own conscience, it would have been difficult for him to have justified himself in the eyes of his countrymen. The terms on which the Dainty had surrendered were grossly violated. Don Beltran, himself, is said to have sent most of the ship's company to serve in the galleys at Car- thagena ; \ and some few to Spain, where they were not likely to experience better treatment. Sir Richard, and twenty others, he took with him to Lima. That much kindness was shown them by individuals there is more than once declared in Sir Richard's narrative ; but in a despatch from the King of Spain to the viceroy, in reply to the details of the victory, this notable passage occurs : — " Inasmuch as relates to the punishment of the English general, and the others who were taken in the said ship, whom you say the Inquisition had demanded, and that having no order there concerning my will as to what should be done with them, you had procured with the holy office that it should defer bringing out the said general in an auto (da fe), because it was understood that he is a person of quality : that which appears good to us in this matter is, that justice should be done conformably to the quality of the persons ".| * This he declared in his dedication to Prince Charles : — " Amongst other neglects prejudicial to this state, I have observed that many the worthy and heroic acts of our nation have been buried and forgotten; the actors themselves being desirous to shun emulation in publishing them ; and those which overlived them, fearful to add or to diminish from the actor's worth, judgment,^and valour, have forborne to write them ; by which suc- ceeding ages have been deprived of the fruits which might have been gathered out of their experience had they been committed to record. To avoid this neglect, and for the good of my country, I have thought it my duty to publish the Observations of my South Sea Voyage ; and for that unto your highness, your heirs and successors, it is most likely to be ad- vantageous (having brought on me nothing but loss and misery), I am bold to use your name, a protection unto it, and to offer it, with all humbleness and duty, to your highness's approbation ; which if it pur- chase, I have attained my desire, which shall ever aim to perform duty." + " A Cartagena los Ingleses luego A las galeras Don Beltran destierra, Esta la chusma fue, que otros embia A Espana por memoria de aquel dia." Lope de Vega, Dragontea, f. 382. J This is stated on Spanish authority, and I subjoin here the original : — ** En quanto al castigo del general Ingles, y los demas que se tomaron 40 ENGLISH SEAMEN Here, then, it appears that the pretension of treating the prisoners as pirates was dropped ; but that the justice of the Inquisition was " to take its course with all who were not of a certain quality " : that is, the Spaniards thought they might bum with impunity such common men as resisted the ordinary and extraordinary means of conversion; but that if they martyred a person of distinction the English Government and the English nation might be roused to vengeance. What was the fate of Sir Richard's companions is not known ; but he himself changed his religion * It ought to be presumed that he was sincere in the change, because the king's letter makes it apparent that he was not in the same danger as his people ; but it would not have been easy to persuade the English of this, even if there had been religious liberty enough at home to have allowed him to enter upon his vindication. This may explain why it was so long before he began to publish his narrative, and why it was found at his death not to have been continued farther. en el dicho navio, que dices los pidio la inquisicion, y que por no tener orden alia de lo que es mi voluntad se haga dellos, procurarias con el santo oficio que se fuesse dilatando el sacar al dicho general al auto, por aver entendido que es persona de calidad, lo que en esto ha parecido es, que se haga justicia conforme a la calidad de las personas " {Suarez de Figueroa, p. 222). * Lope de Vega affirms this in his Dragontea (Canto iii., ff. 383, 384.). I have not seen it mentioned anywhere else : but it is not a circumstance that he would have invented; and if it had not been true Sir Richard would certainly have contradicted it, for it can hardly be supposed that he had not seen this poem (which was first published in 1598), nor that (even in that unlikely case) he should not have heard that he was represented in it as one who had deplored his heresy, and " A quien mo via un pensamiento santo El corazon, del misma Dios movido ; Y no fue vano el fruto de aquel llanto, Que su esteril terreno humedecido, La simiente evangelica recibe, Y en el gremio Catholico se escrive." Something concerning it might, perhaps, be found in Lima Fundada, a poem by the many-named doctor Don Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo Rocha y Benavides, printed in that city in 1732. The first part of this poem I have never seen : but I see by the second that the fifth canto contains an account of all the viceroys down to the accession of Philip IV. ; and in what he says of their successors there is much relating to the Buccaneers. The Spaniards have many historical poems relating to their conquests : the poetry in them is of little value, and the fiction of less, but many facts are preserved there which have been nowhere else recorded. SIR RICHARD HAWKINS 41 The change, though it prevented the Inquisition from renew- ing its claims upon him, did not secure his personal freedom ; for the Spaniards raised a question whether Don Beltran, who derived his commission mediately from the viceroy and not directly from the king, could grant terms by which the king's Government should be bound : and though this was at length conceded, and though Don Beltran earnestly solicited that they should frilly be observed in Sir Richard's case, he was, nevertheless, sent to Spain as a prisoner, and kept in prison some years, with the view of deterring others by this severity from entering the South Sea. At length, the Conde de Miranda, as president of the council, delivered a peremptory sentence that he was to be discharged; "for no enemy," he said, "would ever yield himself, unless terms, deliberately granted by the king's captains, were faithfully kept".* * Camden, 489. SIR RICHARD GREENVILLE SIR RICHARD HAWKINS and Sir Richard Greenville were the only naval commanders during Elizabeth's reign who were compelled to strike their flag to the Spaniards ; and in both cases the circumstances were such, that no victory ever tended to raise the reputation of the English for courage more than these defeats. Richard, the son of Sir Roger Greenville, was born about the year 1 540, somewhere, it is supposed, in the west of Eng- land, of a family lineally descended from Rollo of Normandy. He was one of those adventurers who in 1566 obtained the queen's permission to serve in Hungary against the Turks ; and it has been said, that he was on board the Christian fleet in the great battle of Lepanto. Serving afterwards in Ireland, Sir Henry Sydney was so well satisfied with his conduct, that upon his recommendation the queen appointed him sheriff of the city of Cork during her pleasure. In 1571 he was elected one of the members for the county of Cornwall, and was knighted when he became high sheriff of that county. In 1584 Raleigh obtained a patent to discover, have, hold, and occupy such remote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed by any Christian prince, as to him, his heirs and assigns, should seem good. Sir Richard Greenville is said to have been of the co-partners with him in the first voyage to Virginia ; and when upon the report made of that country, it was determined to plant a colony there, he com- manded the squadron, consisting of seven sail, in which the adventurers were taken out. They sailed in April, 1585, and on the 12th of May anchored in Mosquito Bay, in the island of Puerto Rico, within falcon shot of the shore. Sir Richard landed, and fortified himself in a position where one side was protected by the sea, another by a river, and the remaining parts environed with woods. (42) SIR RICHARD GREENVILLE 43 There he felled timber, and built a pinnace with it, "the Spaniards not daring to make or offer resistance". After some days a party of twenty horsemen appeared on the oppo- site bank : they showed a flag of truce, and two from either side met on the sands. The Spaniards saluted the invaders courteously, but began, "according to their Spanish-proud humours (says the English relater), to expostulate with our men about their arrival, and fortifying in their country. They were told in reply, that our intention was only to furnish ourselves with water and other necessaries whereof we stood in need, which we craved might be yielded us with fair and friendly means, otherwise our resolution was to relieve ourselves by the sword." The Spaniards, we are told, upon "this discreet answer," made "large promises of all courtesy and favour". On the morrow the pinnace was finished and launched ; and Sir Richard marched some four miles into the country, expecting the coming of the Spaniards, according to their promise, to furnish us with victuals : " but they, keeping their old custom for perjury and breach of promise, came not ; whereupon the general fired the woods thereabouts. The same day he fired his fort also, and re-embarked his men." * No suspicion seems to have been entertained that the Spaniards might have alleged a better reason for being late with their supplies, than the adventurers could have given for so hastily acting as enemies. Greenville, however, proceeded as if there had been open war. On the night after he set sail, he took a Spanish frigate, which the Spaniards wisely forsook upon sight of the squadron ; and the next day he captured another, "with good and rich freight, and divers persons of account in her, whom he ransomed for good round sums, and afterwards landed on the island ". One of these prizes was sent to Roxo Bay, on the south-west of the island, where Ralph Lane, the intended commander of the colony, landed and intrenched himself, while a party in sight, and in defiance of the Spaniards, carried off as much salt from one of their salt hills as was required for the use of the fleet. This done, they sailed for Hispaniola, and anchored at Isabella. -I" Here a friendly intercourse took place. The governor came to tlie sea-side, and Greenville landed. Due precautions were taken on both parts, and due faith observed ; and while they * Hakluyt, iii., 251. -^ Ibid., 252. 44 ENGLISH SEAMEN conferred, the English "provided two banquetting houses, covered with green boughs, one for the gentlemen, the other for the servants, and a sumptuous banquet was brought in, served all in plate, with the sound of trumpets and concert of music, wherewith the Spaniards were more than delighted ". In recompense for this banquet, the Spaniards, " caused a great herd of white bulls and kine to be brought together from the mountains, and appointed for every gentleman and captain that could ride a horse ready saddled, and then singled out three of the best of the herd to be hunted by horsemen after their manner". "The pastime grew very pleasant," and in the course of three hours the three beasts were killed : one of them having taken to the sea, was there shot with a musket. " After the sport many rare presents and gifts were bestowed on both parts ; and the next day we played the merchants, in bargaining with them by way of truck and exchange of divers of their commodities, as horses, mares, kine, bulls, goats, swine, sheep, bull-hides, sugar, ginger, pearl, tobacco, and such like commodities of the island." * They departed from the Spaniards with great goodwill ; yet they imputed the courtesy with which they had been entertained rather to their own vigilance and strength than to any hearty goodwill. Had they been weaker, doubtless, they said, " they might have looked for no better treatment than Hawkins had received at St. Juan de Ulloa, or Oxen- ham on the isthmus of Darien". Sailing from thence on the 7th of June, they reached their destined harbour in Virginia by the end of the month. Greenville, in an eight days' ex- pedition, " first discovered the towns of Pomeioc, Aguascogoc, and Secotan, and the great lake called Paquipe. One of those towns he burnt, and spoiled the corn about it, because an Indian had stolen from him a silver cup ; and having remained about two months to settle the colony, he sailed for England. On the way he captured a Spanish ship of 300 tons, richly laden, boarding her with a boat made from the materials of some chests, and so ill, or hastily put together, that it opened and sunk at the ship's side, as soon as he and his men were out of it." f In the following year he returned with three well-appointed ships, to visit and reinforce the settlers ; but he found the settlement deserted. The colonists, who had * Hakluyt, 252. t Ihid., 253. SIR RICHARD GREENVILLE 45 declared it to be " the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven, and a country to which, if it had but horses and kine in some reasonable proportion, and were inhabited by Englishmen, no realm in Christendom would be comparable," * had gladly accepted -j- Drake's offer of a passage, and forsaken it, leaving all things confusedly, as if they had been chased from thence by a mighty army. "And no doubt," says a contemporary, " so they were ; for the hand of God came upon them for the cruelties and outrages committed by some of them against the native inhabitants." After seeking them in vain, and not being able to obtain any tidings concerning them. Sir Richard, unwilling to lose the right of possession, landed fifteen men in the isle of Roanoak, supplied them plentifully for two years, and so departed. On his way homewards, he landed on some of the Azores, " and spoiled the towns of all such things as were worth carriage," carrying away also some Spaniards as prisoners. " With these and many other exploits done by him in this voyage, as well outward as homeward, he returned into England." J A man of Sir Richard Greenville's daring disposition was not likely to remain inactive in those stirring times : but nothing is related of him till five years afterwards, when he was sent out as vice-admiral, with seven sail of the queen's ships, under the Lord Thomas Howard. The object of this expedition was to intercept the Spanish fleet from the West Indies, which had wintered in the Havannah the preceding year, lest it should fall into the hands of Hawkins and Fro- bisher. It was now open war between Spain and England ; and on this occasion both nations gave proof of vigour and perseverance in their designs. Philip caused this West India fleet to delay sailing till so late in the season, that it en- dangered their shipwreck, "choosing rather to hazard the perishing of ships, men, and goods, than that they should be- come the prize of the English ". There were two motives for this delay : he wanted time for fitting out a far superior naval force, and he hoped that the Lord Thomas would have con- sumed his provisions, and, therefore, return home : but ships and stores were sent from England to the squadron, which was thus enabled to keep the sea ; and the Spaniards were not less disappointed in their expectation of coming upon the English * Hakluyt, 255. t See p. 197. J Hakluyt, 265, 46 ENGLISH SEAMEN by surprise : for the Earl of Cumberland was then off the coast of Spain ; and he having obtained intelligence of their designs, despatched advice to Lord Thomas.''^ When this advice arrived, the English fleet was riding at anchor near the island of Flores : it consisted then of six queen's ships, six victuallers of London, the barque Raleigh, and two or three other pinnaces. Many of the men were on shore, some providing ballast, some filling their casks, and others " refreshing themselves with such things as they could either for money or by force recover ". The news had scarcely been delivered before the enemy's fleet hove in sight. It was the first time, except in the case of the great Armada, that the King of Spain had '' shown himself strong at sea " ; -f- and his force amounted to about fifty sail. | They were " filled with companies of soldiers, in some 200, besides the mariners, in some 500, in others (it is said) 800 ; whereas in ours there were none beside the seamen, except the servants of the commanders, and some few voluntary gentlemen only ". The English ships, too, were '^ all pestered and romaging ; every- thing out of order ; very light for want of ballast ; and what was most to their disadvantage, half the men of every ship sick, and utterly unserviceable ". § Some of them had not time to weigh anchor, but '^were driven to slip their cables and set sail". Greenville was the last that remained, "choos- ing," says Sir Richard Hawkins, |I "rather to sacrifice his life, and to pass all danger whatsoever, than to fail in his obligation, by gathering together those who were ashore ; though with the hazard of his ship and company ".51 * See p. II. Monson, 163. fMonson, 321. J The account in Hakluyt (p. 173) says fifty-three. Monson says fifty- five (p. 163). Linschoten states it at thirty great ships, Biscayan, Portuguese, and Spanish, ten Dutch fly-boats, which had been embargoed at Lisbon for the king's use, and other small yachts and pataxas for the service of the fleet; "om af en aen te loopen, ende alle dinghen te out- decken ". § Hakluyt, 170. |i Observations^ 10. IT The account in Hakluyt agrees with this. Sir William Monson, on the contrary, says, "that when the Lord Thomas warily, and like a discreet general, weighed anchor, and made signs to the rest of his fleet to do the like, with a purpose to get the wind of them. Sir Richard Green- ville, being a stubborn man, and imagining this fleet to come from the Indies, and not to be the armada of which they were informed, would by no means be persuaded by his master or company to cut his cable, to follow his admiral ; nay, so headlong and rash he was, that he offered SIR RICHARD GREENVILLE 47 The Lord Thomas and the other ships " very hardly re- covered the wind," which Sir Richard was not able to do. Seeing this, the master and others advised him to cut his mainsail and cast about, and trust to the sailing of the ship, for the Seville squadron was on his weather-bow. His ship, the Revenge, was noted as one of the " best for sail in Eng- land " ; but he refused to turn from the enemy, declared that he chose rather to die than dishonour himself, his country, and Her Majesty's ship, and threatened that if any man laid hand upon the sail, he would cause him to be hanged. " He would pass through the two squadrons in spite of them," he said, "and enforce that of Seville to give him way." And this " he performed upon divers of the foremost who sprang and fell under the lee of the Revenge ; but the other course," he who relates this adds, " had been the better, and might right well have been answered in so great an impossibility of pre- vailing ". While he in this determination prepared for battle, the great St. PhiLipe, " being in the wind of him, and coming toward him, becalmed his sails in such sort that his vessel could neither make way nor feel the helm, so huge and high carged was the Spanish ship, being of 1500 tons, which after laid the Revenge aboard ". This great galleon "carried three tier of ordnance on a side, and eleven pieces in every tier; and she shot eight forth right out of her chase, besides those of her stern ports ". The ships that were under her lee luffing up, also laid him aboard, two on his larboard, and two on his starboard. In the beginning of the action, the George Noble of Lon- don, which had received some shot through her, fell under the lee of the Revenge, and asked Sir Richard "what he would command him, being but one of the victuallers, and of small force .'' " Sir Richard bade him save himself, and leave him to his fortune. It was said, as if in excuse for the other ships, that "the Lord Thomas would have entered violence to those that advised him so to do. But the old saying, that a wilful man is the cause of his own woe, could not be more truly verified than in him ; for when the armada approached, and he beheld the great- ness of the ships, he began to see and repent of his folly, and when it was too late, would have freed himself of them, but in vain " (p. 163). The better motive may fairly be ascribed to Greenville in this part of his conduct. That he sacrificed himself and his ships afterwards, in a spirit of obstinate and desperate bravery, seems certain. 48 ENGLISH SEAMEN between the squadrons, but the rest would not condescend, and his master offered to leap into the sea rather than con- duct Her Majesty's ships to be a prey to the enemy, where there was no hope or possibility either of defence or victory. Master Thomas Vavisor in the Foresight stayed two hours as near the Revenge as the weather would permit, not forsaking the fight, till he was like to be encompassed by the Spaniards, and with great difficulty cleared himself." The others "gave divers volleys of shot, and entered as far as their own necessity to keep the weather-gage allowed, until they were parted by night". From three in the afternoon, "the fight continued very terrible all that evening : the Spaniards made many attempts to carry their enemy by boarding, but were still repulsed again and again, and beaten back into their own ships or into the sea". The great St. Philipe having received the lower tier of the Revenge, discharged with cross-bar shot, shifted herself with all diligence from her side, utterly mis- liking her first entertainment. It is said that one of the great galleons and the admiral of the hulks were sunk ; but as fast as the Spanish ships were disabled or beaten off others supplied their place, the Revenge never having less than two aboard her, and that thus before morning she had been en- gaged with fifteen opponents. By that time the English had suffered severely. An hour before midnight Sir Richard received a musket-shot in the body, and was obliged to leave the upper deck : while his wound was being dressed, his surgeon was mortally wounded, and he himself received a second wound in the head. "As the day increased, so our men decreased, and (in the words of the old relation) as the light grew more and more, so by much more grew our discomforts. All the powder of the Revenge to the last barrel was now spent; all her pikes broken, forty of her best men slain, and the most part of the rest hurt." The Spaniards had reinforcements of soldiers from the other squadrons, "all manner of arms and powder at will. Unto our there remained no comfort at all, no hope, no supply either of ships, men, or weapons ; the masts all beaten over- board, all her tackle cut asunder, her upper work altogether raised ; and, in effect, evened she was with the water, but the very foundation or bottom of a ship, nothing being left overhead, either for flight or defence." Sir Richard finding himself in this distress, the Revenge not SIR RICHARD GREENVILLE 49 able to move one way or other, but as she rolled with the waves, called upon the company to yield themselves unto God and to the mercy of none else, and commanded the master gunner, whom he knew for a most resolute man, to split and sink the ship, " that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to the Spaniards ". The gunner readily consented ; but the captain and the master were of another opinion : the enemy, they said, would be as ready to enter- tain a composition as they were to offer it ; there were many brave men yet living, and whose wounds were not mortal, who might live to do their country and their prince acceptable service ; they besought Sir Richard to have some considera- tion for them : and told him, that as for any triumph which the Spaniards could have in taking one of Her Majesty's ships, she was so much injured that they could not save her from sinking, and there was at this time six feet water in the hold. Sir Richard continued obstinate in his purpose. Leaving the captain, therefore, to use his influence with the men, and prevent him from effecting it, the master went on board the Spanish general, and easily obtained from a noble enemy that all their lives should be saved, and the company sent to Eng- land, the better sort paying such reasonable ransom as their estate would bear ; and in the mean season to be free from the galleys or imprisonment. The gunner, finding himself and Sir Richard thus prevented and mastered by the greater number, was only by force withheld from killing himself; and many of the people fearing Sir Richard's disposition, "shot away" aboard the Spanish ships. Don Alonso Bazan, brother to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, was the general of this fleet. He granted the more readily the terras which were asked, for the great desire he had to save Sir Richard, "whom, for his notable valour he seemed greatly to admire," and he sent for him into his own ship the St. Paul, the Revenge " being filled with blood, and slain and wounded men, like a slaughter-house". Sir Richard said the general might do with his body what he listed ; and fainting as he was carried out, when he was brought to himself, he desired the company to pray for him. His wounds were immediately dressed by the Spanish surgeons. Don Alonso did not come near him ; but the other captains and men of rank came to visit and comfort him in his misfortune, wonder- ing at his steadfastness and stout heart, for he showed no 4 50 ENGLISH SEAMEN sign of faintness nor any change of countenance ; and feeling that his death was at hand he spake these memorable words in Spanish, that all who heard them might bear witness to their tenour : — " Here die I, Richard Greenville, with a joyful and a quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a good soldier ought to do, who has fought for his country, queen, religion, and honour. Wherefore my soul joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an ever- lasting fame of a true soldier, who hath done his duty as he was bound to do. But the others of my company have done as traitors and dogs, for which they shall be reproached all their lives, and leave a shameful name for ever." * He died on the second or third day after his capture. -f- It was a dear-bought victory : the Spaniards lost two ships in the action, and 400 men : of the English, about 100 were slain.l But the Spaniards triumphed in it greatly, because it * This latter sentence is omitted in Hakluyt's extract from Linschoten. I find it in the original ; so necessary is it to refer to the original autho- rities whenever they are accessible. It is evident that Greenville thought himself basely abandoned by the lord admiral and the rest of the fleet, and that they thought he had obstinately exposed himself, and would have exposed them to certain destruction. Linschoten, who honestly relates what he heard, both from the Spaniards and the English prisoners, says that Sir Richard was of a restless spirit, and greatly affected to war and violence. But he had performed many valiant acts, and was much feared in those islands, and known of every man, but very severe of nature, so that his own people hated him for his fierceness, and spake very hardly of him for his tyranny. " He was of so hard a complexion, that often, when he had other captains for his guests, he would carouse three or four glasses of wine, and then in a bravery take the glasses between his teeth and crush them in pieces, and swallow them, so that the blood sometimes ran out of his mouth, but without any farther : this," says Linschoten, "was told me by divers credible persons, who had many times seen him do it." This brutal exhibition of drunken bravery was not quite obsolete in the last generation. t Hakluyt, 170-173, 185. I The relation in Hakluyt says, that in the beginning of the fight the Revenge had but 100 free from sickness, and ninety sick, " laid in hold upon the ballast, a small troop to man such a ship, and a weak garrison to resist so mighty an army " (p. 171). But Sir Richard Hawkins gives a very different account, and, as it appears, upon official documents. " I account," he says (p. 10), "that he (Greenville) and his country got much honour on that occasion ; for one ship, and of the second sort of her majesty's, sustained the force of all the fleet of Spain, and gave them to understand that they be impregnable; for having bought dearly the boarding of her, divers and sundry times, and with many jointly, and with a continual fight of fourteen or sixteen hours, at length leaving her SIR RICHARD GREENVILLE 51 was the first queen's ship* that they had ever taken, and some of the English fugitives persuaded them that it was the very best in the service. On the day after the action the India fleet, for which the Lord Thomas had waited the whole summer, came in sight, and joined the Armada, so narrowly was this great prize saved from the English cruisers. Their joy for their deliverance was of short continuance. The Spanish general waited at Corvo till the whole were col- lected, to the number of 1 40 sail ; then as they were about to make for Terceira, and so to the Tagus and the coast of Spain, a hurricane arose, and of the whole fleet and convoy not above forty vessels escaped destruction. Among others, the Revenge was driven upon a rock near Terceira, and dashed to pieces, all on board, who were about seventy Spaniards, and a few only of the prisoners, perishing. Some of the superstitious islanders imputed it to Greenville's ghost : the devils loved him, they said, because he was of a devilish religion : therefore, as soon as his body was thrown overboard, he presently sunk to the bottom, and so down to hell, and there raised up the devils to revenge him ; and they brought these storms, more terrible than any that ever were remembered, upon the Spaniards, because they maintain the holy Catholic and Apostolic faith ! f without any mast standing, and like a log in the sea ; she made, notwith- standing, a most honourable composition of life and liberty /or above 260 men, as by the pay-book appeareth ; which her majesty, of her free grace, commanded, in recompense of their service, to be given to every one his six months' wages." * Sir William Monson (p. 202) says, " We may partly judge by that ship the Revenge's precedent misfortunes, that she was designed, from the hour she was built, to receive some fatal blow ; for to her, above all other her majesty's ships, there happened these unfortunate accidents. In 1582, in her return out of Ireland, where she was admiral, she struck upon a sand, and escaped by miracle. In 1586, at Portsmouth, being bound upon a southern expedition, coming out of the harbour, she ran aground, and, against the expectation of all men, was saved ; but was not able to proceed upon her voyage. The third disaster was in 1589, as she was safely moored at Chatham, where all the queen's ships lay, and as safe one would think as the queen's chamber ; and yet, by the extremity of a storm, she was unluckily put ashore, and there overset, a danger never thought on before, or much less happened. And to make this misfortune the more strange and remarkable, the same night (before twelfth-night) it was my chance to be at Cork, in Ireland, and I passed down from thence in a boat to Cross Haven, in the greatest calm I have seen." t Linschoten. Hakluyt, 187. 52 ENGLISH SEAMEN Though Sir Richard Greenville cannot be justified for en- tering into the action in which he lost his life, he supported it so bravely, that he raised the character of the British navy, and thereby well entitled himself to the place which he continues to hold in its annals. His death-scene stamped his character in the minds of his contemporaries and of pos- terity ; so great is the effect of any one virtue, when displayed in an eminent degree, even though it be that virtue which is the commonest, as belonging sometime wholly, and generally in great part, to our animal nature, and which may exist with little to ennoble, and nothing to adorn it. At that time, too, a better moral feeling began to prevail between Spain and England. As soon as it was open war between the two countries, the feeling of hatred gradually softened into that of hostility. On the part of the English it was no longer a private quarrel, in which individuals engaged for the strong desire of plunder, or the stronger appetite for revenge ; and on the part of the Spaniards it was felt that they were not now engaged with pirates, but with national enemies, who were entitled to the usages of fair warfare. On both sides it became a public quarrel and a public cause. And though there was still too much opportunity and scope for the ex- ercise of evil passions, generous feelings also were called into action; and each nation learnt to respect the characteristic virtues of the other. ROBERT DEVEREUX, SECOND EARL OF ESSEX 1567-1601 WALTER DE EWRUS, Earl of Rosmar, came over with the Conqueror, and obtained the lordships of Salisbury and Amesbury, as his portion of the spoils. Those honours passed away with his eldest son. The family name, some- times written D'Ebrois, sometimes D'Evereux, was continued in the descendants of a younger son, one of whom. Sir Walter Devereux, in the reign of Henry VL, married the sole daughter and heiress of Lord Ferrers de Chartley ; laying, by that mar- riage, the foundation of those honours to which his family afterwards attained. His son, John Lord Ferrers, married the sister and heiress of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, maternally descended from Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester. Their successor was rewarded with the title of Viscount Hereford, for his services at the siege of Boulogne ; and his grandson, who succeeded him in that title, and stood high in Elizabeth's favour, was created Earl of Essex, for his conduct in the northern rebellion of 1569: his other titles were Earl of Eu, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Bourchier, and Lovaine, and knight of the garter. This able and excellent man died in Ireland, desiring, on his death-bed, that his son might be admonished to have alway before his eyes the six- and-thirtieth year of his age, which neither he nor his father had passed. The old military feeling of barbarous ages was so strong in him, that when his case was known to be hopeless, and his prayer was to be dissolved, he was yet loth to die in his bed; and, "at the last yielding up of his breath," his intellect being unimpaired and his speech firm, his words were, " Courage ! courage ! I am a soldier that must fight (53) 54 ENGLISH SEAMEN under the banner of my Saviour Christ ! " * His death was imputed to poison, and laid to Leicester's charge, who had used him invidiously, and who married his widow under circumstances reproachful to himself; but the imputation was beyond all doubt j- calumnious. Robert, his eldest son, was born on the 10th of November, 1567, at Nethwood (or Netherwood), in Herefordshire. When he had just completed his sixth year, his father, who had the greatest confidence in Lord Burleigh, offered that eminent statesman the direction, education, and marriage of this his eldest son, as " the most sufficient pledge of his goodwill ; whom," said he, "if you can like to match with your daughter, I will presently assure him 2000 marks by year, in England, besides my houses, domaines, and parks ; I will give to your lordship 100/., or 200 marks by year for his education; I will assure to your daughter 500/. by year in jointure ; and, upon the marriage, depart with a convenient portion for their maintenance during my life. If, at years of discretion, the match shall not go forward, I will give to the gentlewoman to her marriage 2000/. There is equality sufficient in their years, and no great distance in neighbourhood between Theo- balds and Bonington : such an occasion might make me like well of my lands in Essex, where, if God send me life, I might hereafter show all offices of friendship to the good countess your daughter, of whose match, I mistrust not but your lordship shall in the end receive singular :{: comfort." In a letter, which was the earl's last act in worldly affairs, he requested that Hereford, as he called him, might be brought up by Burleigh ; and in Burleigh the orphan found a kind and upright guardian. Queen Elizabeth manifested her sense of his father's ser- vices, by remitting a debt incurred in the course of those services, and bestowing upon him " his marriage, and all his father's rules in Wales ". "I protest," said a faithful servant of the family, " I do not think that there is at this day so * Ellis's Original Letters, ii., 282. The circumstance is related in a letter to Burleigh, describing the earl's death; and the writer says it "made me rememljer your lordship's tale of your father ". f He died of " a mere flux, a disease appropriated to this country," says Sir Henry Sydney, writing from Ireland {Sydney Papers, i., 88). In a subsequent letter (pp. 140-142), is a minute account of the earl's illness, and of his edifying death. X Ellis's Original Letters, second series, iii., 32. ROBERT DEVEREUX 55 strong a man in England of friends as the little Earl of Essex ; nor any man more lamented than his father, since the death of King Edward. The lords do generally favour and further him, some for the trust reposed, some for love to the father, others for affinity with the child, and some for other causes." * When he was about twelve years of age, Burleigh placed him at Trinity College, Cambridge, under the care of its then master,f Whitgift, afterwards archbishop. Having been * Sydney Papers^ i., 147. t It is remarkable that neither Strype nor Sir George Paul mention Essex among the distinguished persons who were educated under Whit- gift. •• He had divers earls and noblemen, sons to his pupils (says Sir George) ; namely, the Earls of Worcester and Cumberland, the Lord Zouch, the Lord Dunboy of Ireland, Sir Nicholas and Sir Francis Bacon : in whom he took great comfort, as well for their singular towardliness, as for their observance of him, and performance of many good offices towards him." Essex must have designedly been pretermitted in this enumeration, not because of his unhappy fate, but because of those per- verse principles which had weaned him from his tutor. The encomiastic biographer of his son says, " I have heard grave men and of great judg- ment say, that he was the less inclined to Dr. Whitgift, a reverend divine, and his tutor also, because he was a bishop" [Harl. MSS., vol. vi., p. 8, octavo edition). And he observes that the parliamentary general " received by inheritance those opinions which led him to be the instru- ment of pulling down the established church ". Sir George Paul says that the archbishop had still a vigilant eye over Essex, so '• that he could not, though he would, do any great hurt" {Wordsworth's Ecc. Biog., iv., 367) In Mr. Ellis's most valuable selection of Original Letters (second series, iii., 73), is printed an inventory of " the parcells which my Lord of Essex bought at his entrance on his chamber at Cambridge " ; curious, says the editor, as affording a complete notion of the college rooms of a young nobleman at that time. The sum total amount, jl. os. lod. There is also his tutor's bill of expenses for a quarter, amounting to 45/. 105. 2d.; among the items are, 6s. 8d. for his lordship's washing; 2/. to the barber for his trimming ; 2s. 4(f . for the carriage of his trunk with his apparel from London ; and lod. for two dozen of trenchers. The books included in this account are Ramus's Logic, 2od ; Ramus on Tully^s Orations, 45. ; Sturmius de Elocutione, 45. ; Grimalius de Optimo Sena- tore, 25. 4^. ; and Isocrates in Greek, 45. In the same collection is a letter from his tutor, Mr. R. Wright, to Mr. R. Broughton, who must have held some situation under Burleigh, requesting that the young earl's outfit might not be delayed. " I need not," he says, " write unto you of my lord his extreme necessity of ap- parel, when you yourself was an eye-witness. But this I say, as you know it, so other men marvail that his great want is not supplied, sith the time of the year (June), beside the consideration of his estate, doth require great change. Therefore, as you tender his health, I pray you solicit the matter to my lord treasurer ; for unless you do not only remember my 56 ENGLISH SEAMEN " strictly educated " there, it is said, and having applied him- self to learning with more diligence than was usual in persons of his rank, he took the degree of master of arts in 1582. But though he profited well by the pains bestowed upon his education, he had shown a disposition for lavish expenditure which drew upon him a monitory reproof from his careful guardian, and for which he requested pardon on the score of his youth, "if he had, through want of experience, in some things passed the bounds of frugality ; and he prayed his guardian, notwithstanding this elapse of his youth, still to continue his loving friend ". Leaving Cambridge, he went to his own house * in Wales, meaning there, it is said, to lead a retired and contented life, in obedience to his father's dying advice, that he should " refrain from the court, and not trust his ear with the flatteries, nor his eye with the splendour of it ".-j- '' Here," says Sir Henry Wotton, " after the academical life, he had taken such a taste of the rural, as I have heard him say (and not upon any flashes or fumes of melancholy, or traverses of discontent, but in a serene and quiet mood), that he could well have bent his mind to a retired course." From "this kind of resolved privateness he was," not without diffi- culty, drawn by his father-in-law, Leicester. The court, how- ever, was a scene to which his inclination, as well as his rank, invited him; and he entered upon it, says Fuller, | "with four great advantages, — of pity, kindred, favour, and merit. Pity, on the account of his father lately dead (to say no more), and generally lamented ; kindred, by his mother's side, lord, but see his commandment put in execution, he shall not only be threadbare, but ragged. I write earnestly, not so much to stir up you, whom I know to be very forward in my lord his causes, but because his lordship's necessity cryeth out onus." Inclosed was a list of what was wanting. "A fair gown for my lord his holidays ; two doublets ; three pair of hose ; two pair of nether socks ; a velvet cap, and a hat ; a silver plate ; a basin and ewer ; pots or goblets; spoons; plates; a salt and candlesticks; besides the pots which they looked for to be given to the college, according to the manner." For the young lord's attendant, or confidential servant Montgomery, a gown was wanted, two pair of hose, two doublets, two pair of nether socks, and a cap. "There is consideration to be had of him," it is added, "sith he is to be maintained as a gentleman, and the place doth require the same " (Ibid., 75, 76). * At Lampsie, in South Wales, Campbell says ; but Codrington says Anglesea. t Codrington, Harl. MSS., vi., 7. J Worthies, i., 451. ROBERT DEVEREUX 67 Lettice Knowles, near allied to the queen ; favour, being son-in-law to Leicester, and so was a favourite's favourite at the first day, though he quickly stood on his own legs without holding ; merit, being of a beautiful personage, courteous nature, noble descent, fair (though much impaired) fortune". He had, however, to overcome his own dislike of Leicester, and the unfavourable light in which the queen regarded him for his mother's sake. Both prepossessions were ill founded, and both gave way, — his own to the real desire which Leicester felt for his welfare and advancement, the queen's to those endowments of art and nature which rendered the young earl as amiable as he was accomplished. With these endow- ments, and his high parentage, no influence was needed for his advancement : " that the son of a Lord Ferrers of Chart- ley, Viscount Hereford, and Earl of Essex, who was of the ancient nobility, and formerly in the queen's good graces, could not have won in her favour without the assistance of Leicester, was (says Sir Robert Naunton) beyond the rule of her nature. Sure it is, that he no sooner appeared in court, but he took with the queen and the courtiers." In 1585 he accompanied his father-in-law to Holland, where he was appointed general of the horse ; and, for his gallant conduct in that fatal action, in which Sir Philip Sydney received his mortal wound, Leicester conferred upon him the honour of a knight banneret in his camp. On his return he was made master of the horse in place of Leicester, who was advanced to the office of high steward ; and when the camp at Tilbury was formed, the queen appointed him general of the horse, showing rather her favour than her wisdom in nominating an inexperienced young man to what, if an invasion had been effected, must have become so arduous a charge. The favour thus openly shown him, in view of the soldiers and people. Sir Henry Wotton observes, was " the very poison of all that followed, seeing that from thenceforth he fed too fast ". So much, indeed, was he now regarded as a rising personage in the State, that the University of Oxford incorporated him master of arts this year, with the view of better capacitating him to be their chancellor, when that office should become vacant, as it shortly afterwards did by Leicester's death. But it was not the queen's pleasure that this high honour should 58 ENGLISH SEAMEN be conferred upon him, and therefore Hatton was elected in his stead. ^ After the failure of the Armada an expedition to Portugal was undertaken, in aid of Antonio, the pretender to the crown of that kingdom. Essex put himself into this journey against the opinion of the world, and, as it seemed, at the hazard of his fortune. But the desire of glory was not the only impulse that urged him at this time. The queen's bounty, lavish as it was, had not sufficed for his prodigal expenditure. In a letter written to his friend, the vice- chamberlain, he says : " Sir, — What my expenses have been I need not repeat, for no man knoweth them better than yourself. What my state now is I will tell you : my revenue is no greater than it was when I sued my livery ; my debts at the least two or three and 20,000/. Her Majesty's goodness hath been so great as I could not ask more of her. No way left to repair myself but mine own adventure, which I had much rather undertake than to offend Her Majesty with suits as I have done heretofore. If I speed well, I will adventure to be rich ; if not, I will never live to see the end of my poverty." f In this temper, without the knowledge of the queen, because he had reason to apprehend that her consent would not have been given ; and without concert, as it appears, with Norris and Drake, the commanders by land and sea, or knowledge of their plans, he embarked at Falmouth with his only brother Sir Walter, Sir Philip Butler, Sir Roger Williams, and Sir Edward Wingfield, and put to sea with an unfavourable wind, because he would " avoid the importunity of messengers that were daily sent for his return, and some other causes more secret to himself "4 The expedition sailed on the same day from Falmouth for Coruna ; but Essex not knowing whither they were bound, . . . and not inferring, as he might and ought to have done, from Antonio's embarking in the fleet, that it must be designed for Portugal, . . . made for Cadiz, and lay up and down about the South Cape, where he took some ships laden with corn, and carried them with him in * Wood's Fast. Ox. (Bliss's edition), 244. The persons incorporated at the same time with Essex, were called the Essexian creation : among them are the distinguished names of Sirs John and Henry Norris, Sir Robert Sydney, brother of Sir Philip, and Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke {Ibid., 248). t Ellis, iii., 82. X Hakluyt, ii., 140. ROBERT DEVEREUX 59 quest of the fleet. He fell in with it on the western coast of Galicia, and distinguished himself soon after this junction, when the troops landed at Peniche. On the march from thence to Lisbon, he won the hearts of the soldiers by his humanity ; for means of conveyance being scarce, he ordered his own baggage to be thrown off and left by the way, that the sick and wounded might be laid in the carriages ; and these means being insufficient, he and Sir John Norris hired people "to carry men upon mules".* In the affairs which took place before Lisbon and in the suburbs, Essex was con- spicuous ; and when the futility of Antonio's hopes had been proved, and it became necessary for the troops to withdraw, Essex and Sir Roger Williams " remained with the stand that was made in the high street," till the whole army was drawn out of the field. From Cascaes the general sent a trumpet, offering battle to the enemy ; and the earl took that oppor- tunity of sending a particular cartel in his own name, chal- lenging any one of his own quality ; or proposing that, if this were declined, '^six, eight, ten, or as many as they would appoint, should meet an equal number of theirs in the head of our battle, to try their fortunes ; and engaging that they should have assurance of their return and honourable en- treaty". No answer was vouchsafed; and, before the troops re-embarked and sailed for Cascaes, letters from the queen arrived, in consequence whereof he returned to England.f The queen had been much J displeased by his joining the expedition without her leave ; that fault, however, was soon * Hakluyt, 138. ^ Ibid., 148, 149. X Sir Henry Wotton says, " all his hopes of advancement had like to be strangled almost in the very cradle," by his throwing himself into this voyage without the queen's consent ; " whereby he left his friends and dependants near six months in desperate suspense what would become of him, — and, I speak truth, not without good reason. For first, they might well consider that he was himself not well plumed in favour for such a flight ; besides that he wanted a Lord of Leicester at home (for he was dead the year before), to smooth his absence, and to quench the practices at court. But, above all it lay open to every man's discourse, that though the bare offence to his sovereign and mistress was too great an adventure ; yet much more when she might (as in this case) have fairly discharged her displeasure upon her love. Notwithstanding, a noble report coming home before him, at his return all was clear, and this excursion was esteemed but a sally of youth. Nay, he grew every day more and more in her gracious conceit : whether such intermissions as these do sometimes foment affection ; or that having committed a fault, he became more ob- sequious and pliant to redeem it" (Reliq. Wot., 165). 60 ENGLISH SEAMEN forgiven ; neither did she long resent his marriage with the widow of Sir Philip Sydney, Walsingham's daughter, though her consent would have been refused, because she looked upon the connection as disparaging the house of Essex.* But, with many generous qualities, Essex had some dangerous ones ; he was rash, irascible, and arrogant. " When," says his contem- porary, Camden, " he had now got not only an appearance and show, but a real interest in the queen's favour, he presently made it his business (as the wiser sort of the courtiers com- plained) to go beyond both his equals and superiors ; to disparage and dispraise all that were not at his devotion, and frown upon those who had any power or grace with the queen. He began, also, out of the greatness of his spirit, rather than real pride, to use some contumacious carriage towards the queen, especially after she had more than once, out of her bounty and goodness, restored him to her lost favour, and thereby opened a way for conferring new kind- nesses upon him." But Elizabeth was not a sovereign over whom a favourite could domineer ; she could forgive faults, but she was never blind to them. It happened one day that Sir Charles Blount, then newly come to court, ran so successfully at tilt in her presence, that she sent him a chess-queen in gold, richly enamelled, in token of her favour. He wore it next day fastened to his arm with a crimson riband, and passed through the privy chamber with his cloak cast under his arm, that it might be the better perceived. Essex observed it ; and learning what it was, and wherefore it was so worn, in reply to his inquiries, contemptuously said, "Now I see every fool must have a favour!" This "bitter and public affront" came to Sir Charles's ear, and brought on a challenge. They met near Marybone Park, and Essex was hurt in the thigh, and disarmed. The queen, "missing of the men, was very anxious to learn the truth ; but at last it was whispered out, and she then sware by God's death, that it was fit some one or other should take him down and teach him better manners, otherwise there would be no rule with him ".-|- The parties were reconciled by her command ; but the reconciliation in this, as in most cases, appears to have been more sincere on the part of the offended person than of the aggressor. * Camden, 624. t Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia, ROBERT DEVEREUX 6l Still, however, the queen regarded Essex with kindness and with hope ; and on every occasion he received proofs both of her confidence and her good will. He was not less fortunate in retaining his popularity, than in holding his place in the queen's favour. From his first appearance in public life, "he took, as it were, a charter of the people's hearts, which was never cancelled". "As if," says Clarendon,* " they had looked only on the boldness, not the success of his enterprises, he was sure to return with triumph, though the voyage miscarried. For amongst all his foreign undertakings, if they be weighed in the people's usual scale, the cost, though there was not above one or two prosperous returns, and as many that had sad and calamitous issues, yet he never suffered the least public imputation or murmur, but was received with that joy as if the fleet or army were sent out to bring him home, not any spoil or conquest." So far was the queen from taking umbrage at this popularity, that upon occasions when most honour was to be obtained, Essex was always appointed to the command. Such an opportunity seemed to be presented when Henri IV., upon the murder of his predecessor, became the legitimate King of France. The alliance between France and England, strongly united as they were by a sense of their common interest, when they regarded the power and the designs of Spain, was not cordial on either side. The French bore in mind how often they had been defeated in battle, the English how often they had been outwitted in negotiation. The French cherished a rankling remembrance of the evils which the English had brought upon them when they were enemies ; and the English could not forget the usage they had recently received from that part of the nation with whom, on the score of their common religion, they had been acting as friends ; for the Huguenots having obtained assistance from them in men and money, and put them in possession of Havre de Grace, to be retained till Calais should, in conformity to treaty, be restored, had no sooner made terms with the king, than they joined their forces with his, and besieged them in that town ; upon which occasion the Catholics boasted that the English were expelled from France by aid of the very Protestants who had invited * Disparity between Buckingham and Essex, written in his younger days. 62 ENGLISH SEAMEN them thither, and whom they came to help. The loss of lives during the siege had been great ; more perished by the plague than by the sword ; and that fatal disease being brought into England by the remainder of the garrison, carried off more than 21,000 persons in London, and spread over the whole kingdom. This, which was early in Elizabeth's reign, was bitterly remembered by the nation ; but the queen, who be- lieved that Henri sincerely held the Protestant faith which he still professed, thought that for the interests of that faith, and the security of her own dominions, it was expedient at this time to assist him.^ Accordingly, when Cardinal de Bourbon had been pro- claimed king, the Guisards and the Spaniards consenting in the choice, because each regarded him as a puppet who might fill the station till their own schemes were mature, the Due de Mayenne, taking the new title of lieutenant-general of the crown, boasted that he would either take the Beamois, as he scornfully called him, or drive him out of France. His strength appeared to warrant this confidence ; for while great efforts were made by the allies and abettors of the League to supply him with troops, the royal army was diminishing in numbers. There was a strong party in Paris, who, when the contest lay between the Catholics and a Catholic king, pre- ferred in their hearts the king, and held secret intelligence with him ; but upon his murder, some of these thought the papal was politically the safer side, and there were still more who conscientiously believed that it had become the lawful and right one. Henri IH., at the time when he was assassin- ated, might have entered his capital either upon an accord or by force ; -|- neither way was it possible for Henri IV. He found it expedient to retire, and divide his army into three corps : the one he sent into Picardy ; another into Champagne ; and with the third, consisting of 1200 horse, 3000 French infantry, and two regiments of Swiss, he marched into Nor- mandy, with the double object of there receiving succour from England and of drawing Mayenne after him by a feigned intention of besieging Rouen, whereby he hoped to prevent him from attacking those places near Paris which maintained the royal cause. But Mayenne came against him with not less than 25,000 men ; and Henri, calling in the two other * Camden, 6o, 65, 67. f Cayet, Coll. des Mem., Ivi., 135. ROBERT DEVEREUX 63 divisions, and giving up his feint against Rouen, encamped near Dieppe, and there fortified himself in a strong position.* There Elizabeth supplied him with 22,000/. of English money in gold, lest his mercenary Swiss and Germans should revolt for want of pay — (a larger sum, he is said to have declared, than he had ever seen together before), f There too she sent him provisions and arms, and 4000 men under Peregrine Lord Willoughby. Before they arrived, and before his own troops from Picardy and Champagne rejoined him, he defeated an attack which Mayenne made upon his camp at Arques ; the duke retired into Picardy with some loss of reputation, and Henri with his succours marched against Paris. There he attacked and carried all the fauxbourgs on the left side of the Seine ; those of St. Marcel and St. Victor were the parts where the English were employed : they forced the trenches, and some thought the city might that day have been entered if the king had thought proper to follow his success ; but he either doubted his own strength, or perhaps thought that in an assault upon his own capital the success was almost as much to be dreaded as the failure. Retreating from thence, he left the English to keep the Leaguers in check, while he compelled Estampes to surrender (an unfortunate town which had already been thrice taken in the course of four months !). These troops served him afterwards well in reducing Mans, Alen9on, Falaise, Luxon, and Honfleur ; where after a winter expedition and a march of 500 miles, they were dismissed with commendations for their services, and as many as survived re- turned to England. J It was against the queen's judgment that Henri sent back these troops, and he himself soon found that he had presumed too soon upon his own resources and success. Among the * Cayet, Coll. des Mem., Ivi., 141-143, 154. t Camden, 436. :J Camden, 436. In this expedition Sir William Drury, "a noble and accomplished gentleman, was slain in a duel by Sir John Boroughs, he, being a knight of the garter, having contended with Boroughs, a baron's younger son, for the more honourable place and precedency, contrary to the method settled in the ranking of the English nobility ". A more re- markable person was in this army, and died in it of sickness, that true Englishman, John Stubbs, whose right hand was cut off for writing against the queen's projected marriage with the Duke of Anjou, — an act which has left an ineffaceable stain upon that queen and her ministers. Camden says he " was very much missed when he was gone ". 64. ENGLISH SEAMEN various schemes of profligate ambition to which the spirit of the times gave rise, was that of partitioning France ; some of those chiefs who could advance no pretension to the crown, either on the score of birth or of right, thinking themselves strong enough to secure a portion in the division of the king- dom. The Due de Mercceur, whom Henri III. had appointed Governor of Bretagne, relying upon his friendship, upon his gratitude for many favours, and upon the attachment of a near family tie (the queen being his sister), had chosen the side of the League, taking upon himself the title of Protector of the Roman Catholic Religion in that province ; and he made war upon those towns which persisted in their allegiance. After the king's murder, he set up a claim to the duchy in right of his wife, and applied for aid to Spain, which was readily promised, but with no friendly intention towards the due ; for the King of Spain also claimed the duchy as belong- ing to the infanta, his daughter, in right of her late mother. Madam Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Henri II. The Salic law precluded her succession to the crown of France ; but Bretagne was a feminine fee ; and though it had been united to that kingdom in the reign of Francis I., Philip was as far as the duke from submitting to the opinion of the French lawyers, that whatever has been once annexed to that crown is inseparable from it for evermore."^ Accordingly 3000 Spaniards, under Don Juan de Aguilar, were embarked for Bretagne, upon an understanding, ex- pressed or implied, that the duke and they were to co-operate in driving the king's forces out of that duchy, and settle their own claims afterwards. They sailed in August ; but were encountered by some English ships off the coast of Biscay, and found it necessary to put back. When the coast was clear, they set forth again with better fortune, and arrived at Nantes, where they had been long and anxiously expected. With this aid the due again took the field, secured his own towns, and captured Blavet, owing to the misconduct of the governor, who had neglected to strengthen the fortifications. The Spaniards immediately made it a strong place. f Upon this the Prince de Dombes, who commanded for the king in Bretagne, finding himself in more imminent danger than Henri * Cheverny, Coll. des Mem., Ivi., 13. t Et par cette chef desmembrent quasi toute cette province reunie la couronne sous Charles VIII. [De Sevres, iii., 504). ROBERT DEVEREUX 65 in his circumstances was likely to avert, solicited assistance from England. It was not immediately granted, because the application came from a subject, without the authority or ap- parent knowledge of the sovereign. Nevertheless the business appeared to the queen of great moment : that the Spaniards should possess themselves of so rich a country, from whence they could with facility annoy England, Holland, and Zealand, was what England ought not supinely to permit, being more concerned in preventing it now, than in that contest for the duchy wherein Edward III. had expended so much blood and treasure in support of John de Montfort's claim. Some there were who advised her to husband her resources, and not to trust the French, who, out of an inbred and inveterate hatred, were still as hostile to the English when acting as their friends, as they had ever been heretofore when at war with them ; and who had so often deceived them in borrowing money, that, adding contempt to injury, it was become pro- verbial among them to call those creditors whom they never meant to pay les Afiglois.* Neither were they more faithful to their own king or their own country. They had recently murdered a popish king, and made rejoicings for his murder, and justified it ; they were now in arms against a Protestant one, whom they persecuted with papal fulminations ; and in their hatred to their own sovereign they had invited the Spaniards into their towns and strong places. The queen considered such remarks injurious to a noble and powerful nation ; yet they were probably more repugnant to her well- weighed policy, than to her sense of truth ; and when certain statesmen, French as well as English, suggested to her that while the Leaguers and the Spaniards were sharing France between them as a prey, she might seize upon the maritime countries of Picardy and Normandy, and when they supported the suggestion by reminding her how Charles the Bold was wont to say, it would be well for the neighbouring nations when France should be subject, not to one sceptre, but to twenty petty kings, she manifested her impatience and dislike of such counsels, and said, ''whenever the last day of the kuigdom of France cometh, it will be the eve of the des- truction of England ! " "1- Meantime Henri had obtained a great victory over the *Caye', Iv., 368. Camden, 443. flbid., 444. 5 66 ENGL|ISH SEAMEN Leaguers at Yvry, had again besieged his rebellious capital, and reduced it to the greatest distress for food. It was re- lieved by the Prince of Parma, who, entering France for that purpose, accomplished it with complete success, and baffling with consummate skill all Henri's endeavours to bring him to an action, returned into the Low Countries.* The queen had soon reason to apprehend that he was preparing for a second entrance, with the intent of uniting his forces to the Spaniards in Bretagne ; she therefore expostulated with the French king in friendly terms for the silence which of late he had observed towards her, warned him of the impending danger, and offered him succours both by sea and land, if he would assign for them a port and place of retreat, and bring into the field a competent force to act with her. He named in reply Cherbourg, Granville, or Brest, but recommended Blavet -f as the most commodious ; — perhaps with a latent hope that England might be induced to attempt the recon- quest of that stronghold. It was agreed that 3000 English should be sent to Picardy and Bretagne, Henri repaying within a year the amount of their pay, transport, and pro- visioning. Accordingly Sir Roger Williams sailed with 600 men for Dieppe, and Sir John Norris with the rest of the force for Bretagne. Sir Roger's orders confined him to the vicinity of Dieppe ; but having with the French troops in that town routed the Leaguers who infested that part of the country, he disregarded his instructions, and not only accompanied the * " With greater commendations," says Camden (442), " for his military skill in casting up trenches by his soldiers' hands, after the Roman manner and in wisely forbearing to fight, than for his good discipline in restraining his soldiers' licentiousness, who sacrilegiously violated the very churches." If De Serres might be believed, this excellent general made his retreat, " couru, harel^, batu, harasse, disme de jour a autre : pour legon aux es- trangers, que le France ne se peut prendre n'y ruiner que par elle mesme ". (iii., 501). He described with more truth the gentry of his own country, when speaking of them as men whom "une simple apparence de combat emporte tousjours plus gayement au champ de bataille, qu'a quelque heureuse journee de nopces" (498). And elsewhere he renders justice to the prince : " Ce due faisoit plus d'estat de sauver un des siens, que de tuer une dixaine d'ennemis. Ainsi prenant resolution de ne rien hazarder, il change les espees et lances de ces gents en baches et pioches : et se retranchant dedans le marest, evita le hazard, conserva son arm^e ; et ny pour escarmouches, ny pour allarmes aucunes n'abandonna son re- tranchement " (499). t Camden says, " whether he jested or no I know not ". ROBERT DEVEREUX 67 king to the suburbs of Paris, but obeyed his summons after- wards, and joined him at the siege of Noyon.* At the same time Henri solicited a further succour of 4000 English, with whom he proposed to reduce Rouen and Newhaven (as Havre was then called), before the Prince of Parma should re-enter France. He asked the queen to allow them two months' pay, promising withal most religiously that he would be ready to join them upon their landing, and saying that meantime he would tarry in Picardy to prevent any suspicion of his designs upon Rouen. The force was immediately raised, and the com- mand given to Essex. Sir Thomas Leighton and Sir Henry Killegrew, who were men of great experience, were to supply the want of any on his part, by assisting him with their advice, -j- Essex, when he landed at Dieppe, learnt that Henri was far oft* at Noyon, saw no preparations in Normandy, and found no one who could inform him how he was to employ his men. At first this disrespect, as well as evident negligence, excited his anger ; but this was appeased when Sir Roger Williams came posting to him, with an urgent request that he would repair with all speed to Noyon, and there consult with the king concerning the management of the war. The journey in those times was both difficult and dangerous. Essex performed it with a retinue of sixty gentlemen, and made his entrance into Compeigne (whither the Comte de Chaune was sent to meet him) in a style of magnificence that astonished the French. Six pages on fine horses, and in liveries of orange velvet em- broidered with gold, led the way. He was in velvet of the same colour, covered with jewelry. The saddle and all the trappings of his horse were of the same material, and so costlily adorned, that his own dress and the equipments of his horse were estimated at more than 60,000 crowns. Twelve footmen and six trumpeters preceded him. This sort of os- tentation would have been more suitably exhibited at a court festival, than in a country which was the seat of war. Essex was a man easily flattered, easily excited, and therefore easily persuaded and led ; yet nothing could be more contrary to his temper and to his instructions, than to while away time in inactivity, which was what Henri proposed, urging that he * " Where, being prodigal," says Camden, " of other men's blood, he hazarded many English in the assault, without acquainting the queen with it, who therefore was offended with him " (p. 449). t Camden, 447, 449. 68 ENGLISH SEAMEN must needs go into Champagne, there to form a junction with his German auxiliaries,* and promising to send Marshal Biron and the Due de Montpensier without delay to besiege Rouen. The earl was persuaded ; returned with much difficulty to his men, who lay encamped at Arques ; and being as prodigal of honours as he was of everything else, he knighted many per- sons who had little pretensions to be so distinguished : this he did as a means of winning the affections of the army ; but it was to the offence of those upon whom that honour had been conferred before they left England ; and he was justly censured by judicious men for having debased a title which had "till then been of high esteem among the English, and which the queen had bestowed very sparingly, and only upon men of good note and merit ".-|- While Essex lay fretting in his camp, Montpensier, instead of joining him according to the king's promise, went to a wedding in Champagne ; and Biron turned aside to the castle of Pierrefons, which he besieged in vain. Meantime the Sieur de Villars, a man qualified by strength of character for evil times, had been made Lieutenant-Governor of Normandy and Governor of Rouen by the Due de Mayenne. The League had purchased his services at a great price, and they were worth purchasing. He had previously been Governor of Havre, and had there also enriched himself by the success of his cruisers ; and Mayenne had now only appointed him to a command, of which he was on the point of taking possession, that he might make his own terms with one party or the other. Upon the first rumour of Henri's intention to besiege the city, he stored it with provisions ; introduced troops ; garrisoned all the strong places with men on whom he could rely ; demolished the suburbs ; repaired and strengthened the fortifications ; made the people swear after a solemn procession, a high mass, and an inflammatory sermon, that they would rather die than ac- knowledge Henri for their king ; enacted the punishment of death against any who should communicate with him, and erected gallowses in the market-places ^nd principal crossings of the town.;^ Biron at length, abandoning his vain attempt upon Pierrefons, joined Essex, who, eager to be in action, took * Cayet, t. Ivii., 143. " He counted upon these auxiliaries," De Serres says (503), "as a force with which he should give the League check- mate." f Camden, 449. X Cayet, 227, 230, 265. ROBERT DEVEREUX 69 the first opportunity of appearing before Rouen with a party of cavalry ; he fired a culverin upon the town, as if to invite a skirmish, the French sallied in some force, and in this bravado Essex lost his only brother.* The queen reproved him by her letters, both for going to confer with Henri, without acquainting her, and for his rashness in provoking this misadventure. As little was she satisfied with Henri, who now desired of her that Essex might march into Champagne, — as if he had no longer any intention of besieging Rouen, and had only held out the promise of such an undertaking for the purpose of drawing over an English force. Elizabeth resented this, and complained that he had deluded her ; that her troops had been at first neglected, then hurried hither and thither, and everywhere exposed to dangerous attempts ; that his promises of pay had been as ill kept as of besieging Rouen, — not without some taint of levity and inconstancy on his side ; and she said that unless he kept his engagements better, she would recall her troops from Nor- mandy -f Yet neither Essex nor Henri found any difficulty in appeasing her: the one, because she regarded him with so much favour that she was almost desirous to excuse him ; the other, because she knew how injurious it would be to England and to the Protestant cause, if the Spaniards should establish themselves in Bretagne. At length, in the beginning of November, Henri began the siege, but with a force which was inadequate after the enemy had had sufficient time for preparation. On Christmas Eve he attacked the fort of St. Catharine on four sides, and on three of them exposed the English to the slaughter; upon which occasion the queen expressed her opinion, that the English ought not always to be placed where they must bear the brunt of the danger.^ * Cayet, 229. Sir Henry Wotton says of Essex, in his parallel between him and Buckingham, " I must not smother what I have received by con- stant information, that his own father died with a very cold conceit of him, some say through his affection for his second son, Walter Devereux, who was indeed a diamond of the mine, and both of an hardy and delicate temper and mixture. But it seems this earl, like certain vegetables, did bud and open slowly ; nature sometimes delighting to play an after-game as well as fortune" (Reliquia Wottoniana, 173). t Camden, 450. Ij: Camden says he leaves these things to the French historians, "who hitherto have either been ignorant of them, or have purposely taken no notice of them" (p. 451). 70 ENGLISH SEAMEN At his repeated request, however, for further aid, she sent him 2000 men more ; but he still found himself too weak to carry the city by assault, and when Essex offered to attempt it with the English force, was too wise to permit of an attempt which, whether it had succeeded or failed, would have brought upon him a great reproach. Essex had addressed a letter to the Chevalier Picard, who was in the garrison, saying, that having known him in Eng- land, he regarded him, under other circumstances, as his friend ; but that in this war he should be well pleased to find him at the head of his regiment, pike in hand. Villars took upon himself to answer this letter. The Chevalier Picard, he said, would always be found ready to satisfy his desire in this re- spect, either man to man, or with such numbers as might be agreed upon ; and he offered to make arrangements for such a meeting. To this Essex replied, ^^I have the command of an army in which there are many persons of the Chevalier Picard's rank ; and I am the lieutenant of an absolute sover- eign. But if you will undertake the combat yourself, either on horseback or on foot, in armour or in a doublet, I will maintain against you that the king's quarrel is more just than that of the League ; that I am better than you ; and that my mistress is fairer than yours. If you refuse to meet me singly, I will bring with me twenty, the meanest of whom shall be equal to a colonel ; or threescore, the lowest of whom shall be a captain." The Sieur de Villars answered this challenge in these terms : " As for that article of your letter in which you defy me to a combat, you know well enough that at present it is not in my power to accept it, and that the charge, wherein I employed, takes from me the liberty of disposing of myself. But I accept it right willingly when the M. due de Mayenne shall be here, and will combat you on horseback with the arms customary for gentlemen. Not wishing, however, to fail in replying to the conclusion of your said letter, in which you choose to maintain that you are better than me, I say to you that therein you lie, and will lie as often as you maintain it ; and you lie also in saying that the quarrel in which I am engaged for the defence of my religion is not better than that of those who are endeavouring to destroy it. As for the comparison of your mistress to mine, I believe you are not more veracious in that article than in the other two : ROBERT DEVEREUX 71 this, however, is not an affair which concerns me much for the present." * Shortly after this correspondence Essex was recalled : he was advertised at the same time that his enemies, taking advantage of his absence, were intriguing to injure him in the queen's favour ; and he was not sorry to withdraw from a scene in which he had no longer any hope of distinguishing himself by some brilliant exploit. He left his men, much wasted, under Sir Roger Williams's command ; and by this timely departure he was saved from the mortification of re- treating before the Prince of Parma, who, a few days after- wards, compelled Henri to raise the siege. Again Henri applied to Elizabeth for succour in his danger, and she sent him 4000 men, on condition that he should not make peace with the Leaguers unless they submitted and assisted him to expel the Spaniards, nor with the Spaniards unless with her consent ; that he should assign to her troops, while they were employed in Bretagne, a fortified town and harbour for a place of retreat ; and that he should send an equal number of French foot and 1000 horse to join them, and within a year reimburse her for the pay of her troops and the cost of transporting them.-f* So far were these conditions from being observed, that, instead of being joined by a French force in Bretagne to act against the Spaniards, the English were withdrawn from Rouen, posted hither and thither, and em- ployed in petty services ; so much to Elizabeth's displeasure, that she would have recalled them, had there not been certain information that the Prince of Parma was preparing to reinforce the Spaniards in Bretagne, and occupy the ports there. His death averted that danger. But though Spain lost in him the greatest man in her service, a prince accomplished with all virtues befitting a commander, and who had deservedly gained both love and honour even among his enemies, the Spanish counsels were still wisely directed and vigorously pursued. J * Cayet, 233. " Ces lettres coururent de main et main en ce temps Ik ; sur les quelles plusieurs firent divers jugements, selon I'affection des partis qu'ils tenoient. On remarquoit en I'une le natural ancien des vieux cheva- liers Anglois, qui couroient le monde pour maintenir la beauts de leur maistresses. Et en I'autre, un dementy donnd promptement, pour lequel maintenir on s'excusoit sur I'absence de M. de Mayenne. Aussi toutes ces choses ne furent que des paroUes " {Ibid., 235). t Camden, 463. + Ibid., 464. 72 ENGLISH SEAMEN Elizabeth was more distressed by the insincerity of the French king than by the enmity of PhiUp, deep and well founded as that was, and formidable as were the preparations of the Spaniard, and the means which he did not scruple to employ. When Henri forsook the Reformed profession of faith, and publicly declared himself a Romanist, he excused himself to the Queen of England's agent by saying that when he was admitted King of France, it was only upon his swearing that he would, within a certain time, be instructed in the Roman Catholic religion ; that a powerful party, comprising the princes of the blood, the great officers of the realm, and the prelates, and the governors of the provinces and chief cities, were ready to abandon him as a heretic, and cantonise the kingdom among themselves ; that by his conversion he had gained to himself this party, and prevented the election of the Due de Guise as king, acquired the love of the nation, made the great Duke of Florence his fast friend in matters of the greatest concern- ment, and, moreover, saved the Reformed religion from the disgrace with which it must have been branded had his con- version been wrought either by instruction or disputation, instead of proceeding from his own free will.* How little these reasons of policy satisfied Elizabeth, who was thoroughly sincere in her religion, appears by a letter to the King of France, written with her own hand, immediately after the tidings of his transition to the Romish Church had been officially communicated to her: — "Oh, what grief! oh, what regret ! oh, what groanings have I felt in my heart at the report of the news which Morlan has related to me ! My God, is it possible that any worldly consideration can efface the fear of the Divine displeasure ! Can we ever by reason expect any good sequel from so iniquitous an act ? Could you imagine that He who has upholden and preserved you by His hand would leave you alone in your greatest need ? Ah, it is dangerous to do evil for the sake of doing good ! Still I will hope that a holier inspiration will come upon you. Meantime I will not cease to place you in the first rank of my devotions, and to pray that the hands of Esau may not mar for you the blessing of Jacob. Whereas you promise me so much friend- ship and fidelity, I know that I have dearly deserved it ; and I shall not repent of the cost, provided you do not change * Camden, 474, 475. ROBERT DEVEREUX 73 your father. Otherwise I can only be your half-sister, at least on the father's side ; for I love always more dearly the natural than the adopted one, as God best knows, who, I beseech Him, bring you into the right way, and a better path. — Your sister, if it be after the old manner: with the new I can have no part." * No change was produced by this event in the relations between France and England, momentous as it was in other respects. An alliance, the most thankless in which England ever had been engaged, was renewed. The Catholic part of the French nation, and they were the great majority, regarded the English with a religious hatred, which the spiritual agents of the League fomented by means of all those artifices that the Romish Church, during many centuries, has success- fully employed. They circulated a prophecy that the English Jezebel, the name by which Elizabeth was usually designated in their libels, was to suffer death as a criminal, upon the block ; and they drew from their demoniacs a declaration that a host of evil spirits, more than 15,000 in number, who had been ejected from America by the Romish missionaries, had arrived in France to assist the Huguenots there, while another division of the same Inferno- American army crossed the channel to halloo the English dogs against the Catholics. The bitter enmity which was inflamed by such artifices was fostered as a national feeling by the chiefs of that party. When the Due de Guise was about to assault Rouen, in the last orders which he gave his soldiers, he recommended to them these three things — to respect the honour of the women ; to spare the lives of those good Catholics who had been forcibly detained in the town ; and to show no mercy to the English, the old enemies of France.f If the designs of that family against England had succeeded, the days of Queen Mary would not have been the most horrible in English history. That this feeling was not reciprocated by the English * There is a translation by Camden, 475. Mr. Turner has printed the original from a MS. " This her great grief," says Camden, '* she sought to allay by reading the sacred scriptures, and the writings of the holy fathers ; likewise by frequent conferences with the archbishop ; and whether out of the philo- sophers' books also, I know not. Sure I am, that at this time she had Boethius his books De Consolatione daily in her hands, and translated them very handsomely into the English tongue." t Brantome, t. viii., 10 1. 74 ENGLISH SEAMEN people, must be explained by the strong hold which religious opinions had then taken of the public mind. The war, in which merchants embarked capital as in any other concern, and adventurers engaged with no better principles or dis- positions than the Vitalians or the Buccaneers, was regarded by the nation as a contest in which their religious liberties were at stake ; the question at issue being not the succession of the crown alone, nor the national independence, but also whether they were to have the Bible or the Inquisition. All minor considerations were merged in this ; and that of national enmity against the French was as a thing out of mind. To vulgar understandings indeed the great body of the nation was not confounded with the Leaguers, a faction acting in subservience to the policy of Spain ; and exaggerating the numbers, and mistaking in many respects the character of the Huguenots, they looked upon them as the French people, who stood to them in the relation of allies and fellow-Pro- testants. It was only the Government, and the unhappy soldiers appointed to serve with them, who knew that this approximation of belief produced no confidence, no friendship, no good- will ; scarcely even a semblance of respect, or an in- termission of injurious treatment. The English auxiliaries were left to bear the weight of the war in Bretagne ; and when winter came and a place of retreat was required, to the reasonable condition that they should not quarter themselves in the houses of the clergy, the unreasonable one was added which excluded them also from the houses of the gentry, and restricted them from fortifying themselves. They were thus '^dispersed in villages, and exposed to the enemy and the bad weather, enduring a miserable winter". Yet the States of Bretagne entreated Elizabeth not to recall them ; and indignant as she was at the treatment which her troops were enduring, urgent State reasons induced her to comply.^ Those reasons had been stated a year before Henri's pro- fession of the Romish faith, by Burleigh, in the House of Lords ; whose patience he entreated " in suffering an old man, beside his years, decayed in his spirits with sickness, to declare some part of his knowledge of the dangers and perils imminent. In former wars between the kings of France and Spain, none of them intended anything more than to be re- * Camden, 476. ROBERT DEVEREUX 75 venged of supposed injuries, by burning or winning of some frontier towns ; and after such revenges, mutually had to the satisfaction of their appetites, wherein neither party had any special advantages, they fell to truces, and in the end with knots sometimes of intermarriages. And by these kinds of war none of them did increase in greatness to be dangerous to their enemies. But now the case is altered. The King of Spain maketh these his mighty wars, by the means only of his Indies, not purposely to burn a town in France or England, but to conquer all France, all England, and Ireland. He hath invaded Bretagne, taken the port, built his fortresses, carried in his army, waged a navy there, and a great number of the subjects as rebels to France. And there he keepeth a navy armed, to impede all trade of merchandise from England to Gascony and Guienne. Besides this his possessing a great part of Bretagne towards Spain, he hath at his commandment all its best ports towards England : so as he is now become as a frontier enemy to all the west of England. And by his commandment and his waged troops in Newhaven, he hath enlarged his frontiers now against all the south parts in Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. Yea, by means of his interest in St. Maloes, a port full of shipping for the war, he is a dangerous neighbour to the queen's isles of Jersey and Guernsey, ancient possessions of this crown, and never conquered in the greatest war with France. Of this matter of Bretagne, the danger might appear so great, if he had attempted nothing in Normandy and France, as ought to induce England to spare no cost to withstand it. But he destines all his forces to conquer the kingdom of France, the principal kingdom of Christendom. He intendeth to be the king of that realm, or to make his daughter the queen, and to appoint her a husband to be as his vassal. " These are the dangers in France, and must of consequence draw England into like peril, without God's special goodness, and the speedy support to be given to Her Majesty for pre- vention thereof. None ought to think, because he was dis- appointed of his intention for the conquest of England, by his huge navy, therefore he will put that disgrace up and leave off with that loss. It is certain he hath the two last years builded a great number of ships of war, as near as he can to the mould and quantity of the English navy, — finding, by experience, his monstrous great ships not meet for our 76 ENGLISH SEAMEN narrow seas. He hath lately armed a number of galleys on the coast of Bretagne, which he intendeth to send this summer to Newhaven ; he hath also, these two years day, bought and built great ships in Eastland. He hath, both from thence, and by corruption of our faint and covetous neighbours in Holland, recovered, with silver hooks, both mariners, ships, cordage, and all provisions. These being now on the point of readiness, a good argument may be made that this navy is for England ; for now that he hath all the maritime coast of Bretagne, and that he hath in Normandy Newhaven, there is no service by sea to enter into any part of France with it. " How he and the Pope ply themselves to win a party in England, to be ready to second his invasion, I am sorry and loath to relate ; and how far they have prevailed herein to gain so great a multitude of vulgar people, yea, of some that are of wealth and consequence, to adhere to these invaders at their entry, and with vain hopes to attain to the places, honours, and livelihoods of such as are now known true natural Englishmen, and good subjects." * He added, that the court of Spain had entered into an agreement with certain Scottish noblemen, to send 25,000 men in the ensuing summer to the west of Scotland : 20,000 of these were to invade England, with the aid of 10,000 Scotch, whom these nobles were to raise, and to be supplied with money for their wages by Spain ; and the other 5000 were to be kept in Scotland to assist them to overrule the King of Scots, and to change the religion. This accord had been perfected by the Earls Arroll, Huntley, and Angus, promising their own assistance, besides assurance, in general words, of divers more not yet discovered. These earls had, for an earnest penny, received good sums of money from the Low Countries ; and the messenger had been taken on ship- board with their bonds, those of every earl apart in French and Latin, and some signed and sealed by them all. The Lord Admiral Howard, in letters which were indorsed, " Haste, haste, post haste — haste, haste, with all speed," wrote at this time to Burleigh that there was one fleet of Spaniards at St. Maloes, and another, consisting of very great ships, at sea, bearing eastward. He could not imagine, if they passed Newhaven, whither they should go, unless it were for some * Strype's Annals, Appendix, No. 66, vol. iv., pp. 149, 156. ROBERT DEVEREUX 77 enterprise against England, or in Scotland. Nevertheless, he thought letters should be written to Flushing, that they might have warning there, to prevent the worst ; and he also gave directions, meantime, that the beacons might be well kept on our own sea-side. He was very soriy that Her Majesty was then so far from him. " My lord," he added, " I see the King of Spain is determined to block up England, and so to weary us with time ; since, by experience, he sees he can prevail no other way. We have heretofore looked for a summer war from Spain, but now we shall taste of it in winter." * In another despatch he says, that ''such of the queen's ships as were at sea were ever kept as passengers to waft over men, or something else, and not as men-of-war : he would see her hand, however, before any should go on waftage again. But three ships, and a pinnace or two, could not guard the narrow seas, the western seas, the northern seas, the coast of France, and the coast of England and all. I pray God it may here- after be as well defended as it hath been hitherunto ! . . . My lord, as you write, it is fitter Her Majesty were at some standing house near, than wandering so far off to see but that she hath already seen in her progress, and not much worth the labour. God bless Her Majesty, and send her well home, and that these grave and weighty causes may be weightily con- sidered ; for every year will grow more dangerous than other. The enemy hath the start of us too much already ; let us meet with it in some time. The plot is great and dangerous that is laid ; and, although it hath been once checked " (in the year '88), "the malice is not gone, nor the game ended: we must look for more play, and God send us no worse luck. And so I command you to the protection of the Almighty, to keep you in health ; for, by the Lord, we cannot spare you in this world." f The Scilly Isles were at this time strengthened with a fort built on St. Mary's, " which, in respect of the plot thereof, being fashioned like a star, the queen named Stella Maria ". J This was well garrisoned. Guernsey and Jersey also were fortified, and other places, with great charge and diligence. The lieutenants in the several counties were required to * Strype, No. 77. t " From Byflete the first of April (1592), at eleven of the clock at night" {Ibid., No. 74). X Camden, 477. 78 ENGLISH SEAMEN make a review of all the bands, both of horse and foot, that had been enrolled and trained ; seeing that there had been an intermission for two or three years, in which time it was likely that they were greatly decayed by death, or departing away of captains, officers, and private soldiers ; and that there would be a diminution, also, of the horses, armoury, and weapons decayed. The number of merchants* and subjects' ships that were fit to accompany the navy was to be taken, and none permitted to go upon any long voyage. The armoury in the Tower and in other places was to be looked to, and better order than in former times to be taken, in bargaining for culvers and muskets, and such like, for which greater prices than were reasonable had been allowed, upon pretence that the makers did forbear their money. Certain engines, which had been made by Engelbert and his brother, were to be looked after, where they remained, and in whose charge, and how they might be used. All the bishops were to send in reports concerning the recusants ; that the number of such ill-contented persons might be known, and that they might be disfurnished of any force of armour."^ By his change of profession, Henri attached to himself those Catholics in whom religion had not been made the instrument or the pretext of faction ; but when the Spaniards were dismissed from Paris, and were disappointed in the hope of marrying an infanta to the Due de Guise, they strengthened themselves in Bretagne. The dowager queen endeavoured in vain to reconcile her brother, the Due de Mercoeur, to what had now undeniably become the national cause. Persisting in his short-sighted views of ambition, he still hoped to secure Bretagne for himself by the aid of Spain ; and England could not allow the Spaniards to establish themselves upon that coast, engaged as they were in plots for the destruction of Elizabeth, and in preparations for invasion. Marshal d' Aumont, with the assistance of an English force under Sir John Nori'is, besieged and took Morlaix. It had been agreed with the French am- bassador in England, that if this town were taken it should be delivered to the English as a place of retreat ; but Henri's new religion was, on this occasion, made the plea for a breach of faith, and the marshal inserted an article in the capitula- tion that none but Roman Catholics should be admitted there. * Strype, No. 103. ROBERT DEVEREUX 79 This injury also was brooked by the English Government, and borne by the troops, who knew that, while it was for the Government to consult its own interest and honour, it was their part to do their duty in the field. Quimpercorentin was next taken by the allied forces, who then proceeded against Crodon, the fortress by which the Spaniards commanded Brest Harbour. It was encompassed on two sides with water, and defended by two high and large forts, which were connected by a wall having a thick earthwork within ; the forts them- selves were protected on each side by rocks, upon which cannon were planted. Sir Martin Frobisher, with a squadron of ten sail, was riding at anchor off the place, ready to co- operate with the besiegers ; battering-pieces were landed, mounds thrown up, and a breach opened. The Spaniards sallied to interrupt the works, and were beaten back ; but Sir Anthony Wingfield, a famous old soldier, who was ser- jeant-major of the English, was slain by a cannon-shot: he had made his will the preceding day, as if with a presentiment of this event. The queen charged Norris to be careful of his men, and not allow their lives to be squandered in a war wherein others were principally concerned. Soldiers who were seeking glory, she said, ought rather to be restrained than excited ; and the more care he took of her people, the less would he be cen- sured for rashness and a merciless disregard of life, and the better she should be pleased with him. But the admonition came too late. A small breach had been made, and the counterscarp brought down; the English, not content with establishing themselves there, pushed eagerly on, and were repulsed with the loss of some of their best officers. At length the eastern bulwark, against which the French were posted, was mined and blown up ; a general assault was given ; and, after four hours' severe contest, the English entered on their side, and opened an entrance for the rest. The Spanish commander, Don Thomas de Paredes, had fallen in the attack ; the garrison were put to the sword, 400 in number ; and Don Juan de Aguilar, who was marching to relieve them, learned on the way that the fort had been levelled to the ground. But the English lost many brave men in the assault, and, among others, Frobisher received a mortal wound. He lived to bring the fleet back to Plymouth, and there died. "A valorous and stout man he was," says Camden, "and to be 80 ENGLISH SEAMEN reckoned among the most famous of that age, for counsel and conduct, and glory gotten by naval exploits." * Soon after- wards Norris was recalled, upon intelligence that Spanish officers had arrived in Ireland, there to raise a rebellion. The ships which went for him were refused entrance into the port of Morlaix, though it was by English aid that Morlaix had been taken ; and, in bad weather, they were compelled to make for an unsafe roadstead. This treatment Elizabeth remembered and complained of, when Henri, alarmed at the progress of the Spaniards in Picardy, again solicited aid. Yet she ordered a levy of men, and signified that if need were, they should be sent to Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, and other maritime towns. But when the French ambassador complained that she looked with complacency at his master's reverses, and that he might, in consequence, be compelled to make peace with Spain, she answered him promptly upon the spot ; and then, in a letter to the king, represented that it would be no wisdom in her to expose her subjects at manifest disadvantage in his country, when they were threatened with invasion in their own. France itself could testify how many Englishmen had manfully and faithfully shed their blood in assisting him, and many more were ready to serve as bravely in the same cause ; but at this time the popular feeling was, that whatever blood and treasure had been expended in the aid of France had been wasted ; and mourners lamented that their sons and brethren, who had fallen there, had not been reserved for the dangers which now menaced them at home. Essex had not raised himself in the estimation of wise men by his campaign in France, j- but he was not lowered in the queen's favour. He had been warned that his adversaries took advantage of his absence to disparage him in her eyes ; and, indeed, he was better qualified to retain her favour by his presence at the court, than by his conduct in command. His invention in one of those shows which contributed in no slight degree to the refinement of the age was much commended at * Camden, 486, 487. t In an Anti-Spanish pamphlet (1624), entitled " Robert Earl of Essex's Ghost," the author has either the effrontery or the ignorance to say, that " the end of this service was to free the maritime parts of Normandy from the hands of the League, and power of the Spaniards " {Harl. MSS. (8vo edit.), iii., 567). ROBERT DEVEREUX 81 the time, and doubtless as much envied by his rivals. It was on the anniversary of Elizabeth's accession ; and a contem- porary * thus describes it : " Some pretty while before he came in himself to the tilt, he sent his page with some speech to the queen, who returned with Her Majesty's glove. And when he came himself, he was met by an old hermit, a secretary of state, a brave soldier, and an esquire. The first presented him with a book of meditations ; the second, with politic discourses ; the third, with orations of brave-fought battles ; the fourth was his own follower. And then came into the tilt-yard, unthought upon, the ordinary post-boy of London, a ragged villain, all bemired, upon a poor lean jade, galloping and blowing for life, and delivered the secretary a packet of letters, which he presently offered my Lord of Essex." The dumb show ended there ; but, at the after- supper, the four pei-sonages of the drama appeared before the queen, and the squire offered the complaint and petition of his master, Erophilus, to Her Majesty, — his complaint that, coming thither to celebrate her most happy day, he was tormented with the importunity of a melancholy dreaming hermit, a mutinous brainsick soldier, and a busy tedious secre- tary, — his petition, that he might be as free as the rest, and at least, while he was then troubled with nothing but with care how to please and honour her. Each then delivered in his turn a speech composed by Bacon. The hermit exhorted this knight to leave turning over the book of fortune, which is but a play for children, and offer his service to the Muses. They give alms continually at their gate, but few they have ever admitted into their palaces. There should he find friends not dangerous to know, sides and parties not factious to hold, 'precepts and commandments not penal to disobey. The gardens of Love, wherein he now placeth himself, are fresh to-day and fading to-morrow, as the sun comforts them, or is turned from them : but the gardens of the Muses keep the privilege of the golden age ; they never flourish and are in league with time. The monuments of art survive the monu- ments of power. He is now upon a hill, as a ship is mounted upon the ridge of a wave : but the hill of the Muses is above tempests, always clear and calm, a hill of the goodliest dis- covery that man can have, being a prospect upon all the errors t Rowland Whyte, Sydney Papers, i., 362. 82 ENGLISH SEAMEN and wanderings of the present and former times. Yea, in some cliff it leadeth the eye beyond the horizon of time, and giveth no obscure divinations of times to come. So that if he will indeed lead vitajn vitalem, a life that unites safety and dignity, pleasure and merit ; if he will win admiration without envy ; if he will be in the feast, and not in the throng ; in the light, and not in the heat, let him embrace the life of study and contemplation. The hermit concluded with a compliment to the queen, urging this reason, if no other might avail, that . the gift of the Muses would enworthy him in love ; and where he now looked on his mistresses outside with the eyes of sense, which are dazzled and amazed, he shall then behold her high perfections and heavenly mind with the eyes of judgment, which grow stronger by more nearly and more directly view- ing such an object. The soldier in reply affirmed that it was better to be a falcon, or bird of prey, than a singing-bird in a cage ; that the Muses were to sing the actions of martial men, not to be served by them ; that the truest and perfectest practice of all virtues is in the military profession : that all which in any other profession can be wished for, is but to live happily; but, in the field of war, death itself doth crown the head with glory. If, then, the knight was resolved on the pursuit of love, let him aspire to it by the noblest means ; for ladies quickly discern a champion fit to wear their favours from a person not worthy to carry their pantofle. The statesman then delivered his advice. "Contemplation," said he, "is a dream ; love a trance ; and the humour of war is a raving. But what, squire, is thy master's end ? If to make the prince happy he serves, let the instructions to employ men, the relations of ambassadors, the treaties between princes, and * actions of the present time, be the books he reads ; let the orations of wise princes, or experimented counsellors in council or parliament, and the fine sentences of grave and learned judges in weighty and doubtful causes, be the lecturers he frequents. Let the holding of affection with confederates without charge, the frustrating of the attempt of enemies without battles, the entitling of the crown to new posses- sions without show of wrong, the filling of the prince's coffers without violence, the keeping of men in appetite without impatience, be the inventions he seeks out. Let him not trouble himself too laboriously to sound into any matter ROBERT DEVEREUX 83 deeply, or to execute anything exactly ; but let him make himself cunning rather in the humours and drifts of persons, than in the nature of business and affairs. Of that it sufficeth to know only as much as may make him able to make use of other men's wits, and to make again a smooth and pleasing report ; let him entertain the proposition of others, and ever rather have an eye to the circumstances than to the matter itself; for then shall he ever seem to add somewhat of his own : and besides, when a man doth not forget so much as a circumstance, men do think his wit doth superabound for the substance. In his councils let him not be confident, for that will rather make him obnoxious to the success : but let him follow the wisdom of oracles, which uttered that which might ever be applied to the event. And ever rather let hira take the side which is likeliest to be followed, than that which is soundest and best, that everything may seem to be carried by his direction. And if he will needs pursue his affection, what can so much advance in his own way ? When his mistress shall perceive that his endeavours are become a true support of her, a discharge of her care, a watchman of her person, a scholar of her wisdom, an instrument of her operation, and a conduit of her virtue ; this with his diligence, accesses, humility, and patience, may move her to give him further degrees and approaches to her favour." The squire then answering these orators of Philautia, as he called them, in behalf of his Master Erophilus, rejected their serious advice with scorn, and asked " whether his master might not enjoy his own felicity, and have all that they proposed to boot .'' — because, said he, all these are in the hands of his mistress more fully to bestow, than they can be attained by your addresses, knowledge, fame, fortune. For the Muses, they are tributary to Her Majesty for the great liberties they have enjoyed in her kingdom during her most flourishing reign ; in thankfulness whereof, they have adorned and ac- complished Her Majesty with the gifts of all the sisters. What library can present such a story of great actions, as Her Majesty carrieth in her royal breast by the often return of this happy day ? What worthy author, or favourite of the Muses, is not familiar with her ? Or what language, wherein the Muses have used to speak, is unknown to her? There- fore the hearing of her, the observing of her, the receiving instructions from her, may be to Erophilus, a lecture exceeding 84 ENGLISH SEAMEN all dead monuments of the Muses. For fame, can all the exploits of the war win him such a title, as to have the name of favoured and selected servant of such a queen ? For fortune, can any senseless politique promise to himself such a fortune by making his own way, as the excellency of her nature cannot deny to a careful, obsequious, and dutiful servant ? And if he could, were it equal honour to obtain it by a stroke of cunning, as by the gift of such a hand ? Therefore, Erophilus's resolution is fixed. He renounceth Philautia and all her enchantments. For her recreation, he will confer with the Muses ; for her defence and honour, he will sacrifice his life in the wars, hoping to be embalmed in the sweet odours of her remembrance. To her service will he consecrate all his watchful endeavours, and will ever bear in his heart the picture of her beauty, in his actions of her will, and in his fortune of her grace and favour." * This device was much admired ; and though the queen said, that " if she had thought there would have been so much said of her, she would not have been present," the concluding compliment, which was thought by a judicious auditor to be conveyed in excellent but too plain English, -j- was not too glaring for her. Such flattery did not diminish her favour for Essex ; though that she should be accessible to it, may have lessened his respect for her. The Spaniards were still in possession of Blavet ; and the Leaguers, with their aid, were the stronger party in Bretagne. Marshal d' Aumont was mortally wounded J there in besieging Comper, and the Spaniards had leisure to make a descent upon England; but it was only with four galleys, which entered Mountsbay, burned Penzance, with two other fishing towns, and the solitary church of St. Pol, and presently returned, not a man having been slain or taken in the expedition. The land operations of the Spaniards were upon a very different scale, and excited a very different emotion in the English Govern- ment. While Henri was engaged in besieging La F^re, the * Bacon, vol. xiii., 114, 122. t Rowland Whyte, Sydney Papers, i., 362. " The old man was he that in Cambridge played Gireldi ; Morley played the Secretary ; and he that played Pedantique was the Soldier, and Toby Matthew was the Squire's part. The world makes many active constructions of these speeches, comparing the Hermit and the Secretary to two of the lords, and the Soldier to Sir Roger Williams!" jPalma Cayet, ColL des Mem., t. Ix., 85. ROBERT DEVEREUX 85 Archduke Cardinal Albert, with an army which had been raised as if it were intended for the relief of that place, marched suddenly upon Calais, occupied the fort of Risbank, which the governor had neglected to strengthen, and thus obtained the command of the harbour. Henri hastened, with a part of his cavalry, to Boulogne : before he arrived, the cardinal had forced the suburb. Messengers were, in all speed, despatched to England with tidings that Calais was in danger; and the tidings seemed of such importance to Elizabeth, that on the very day of their arrival, ''being Sunday, and during Divine service," she gave orders for raising a force to assist the French king, and to provide withal for the safety of England, which it was thought would be nearly endangered if the Spaniards should obtain possession of Calais. The Spanish guns, indeed, were heard in her palace of Greenwich, cannonading the town. Essex was appointed to the command of the intended expedition : before it could be embarked, intelligence arrived that the place had sur- rendered. Visdossein, the governor, who, though he had been warned in time, had neglected to provide against the attack, retired into the castle ; and there, as if in atonement for that neglect, refusing to capitulate when he had no adequate means of defence, and after breaches which were more than practicable had been opened, he sacrificed his life, being put to the sword and some 800 men with him. Ships came from Dunkirk to secure the harbour against the English and the Dutch ; and Henri, having reinforced Ardres, Montreuil, and Boulogne, returned to prosecute the siege of La Fere.* The cardinal lost no time in following up his success. Having captured some castles on the side of Guisnes, he invested Ardres, at that time a strong though small place, garrisoned by 1500 men. A grandson of Montluc fell in a successful sally against the besiegers : he had broken the corps du garde, cleared great part of the trenches, and won some of the guns, when a cannon-shot carried off both his hips. It was said that if he had lived the place would not have been taken ; so much had he inherited of his ancestor's spirit. But the fate of Calais had intimidated the inhabitants : their fears were aided by the governor's wife, who was more careful of her husband's wealth than of his honour ; and he, who till * Palma Cayet, 236, 240. Camden, 516. 86 ENGLISH SEAMEN then had ever borne the reputation of a brave and prudent soldier, listening to her persuasions, capitulated before the works had received any injury.* The rumours that the Spaniards were preparing for another invasion grew every day stronger ; it was not doubted that this object would be greatly facilitated by their possession of Calais ; and they were elated by the failure of that great expedition to the West Indies at this time, in which Hawkins and Drake died. Neither of the contending powers contented themselves in this war with defensive operations : each knew that the surest mode of defending themselves was by carrying the war to the enemy's gates, and thus striking at the roots of their strength ; and with this view it was proposed that an armament should be fitted out against the ships at Cadiz. No persons were more earnest in advancing this than the Lord Admiral Howard, and Essex, who was then at the height of his favour with the queen. They assured Elizabeth that the great profit of such an expedition would defray all its charges : without such assurances, compelled as she was by necessary prudence to observe the strictest economy, she never would have yielded to the voyage ; but their persuasions induced her to hazard what was then the great outlay of fifty thousand pounds. The fleet consisted of one hundred and fifty sail ; seventeen of these were of the navy royal, eighteen men of war, and six store ships, supplied by the State ; the rest were pinnaces, victuallers, and transports : the force was 1000 gentlemen volunteers, 6368 troops, and 6772 seamen, exclusive of the Dutch. f There were no hired troops in any of the queen's ships ; all were gentlemen volunteers, chosen by the commanders. In numbers and strength the armament was superior to any that this country had sent forth since the introduction of cannon. | Essex and Lord Howard, who both * Brantome, vii., 294. Palma Cayet, 240, 242. fLediard, i., 336. Peter Bor, iv., 232. JCharnock, ii., 151, 155. The author infers, from a list of the fleet which he has printed from a manuscript in the museum, that the vessels belonging to private adventurers were engaged merely as transports, and were protected by the ships belonging to the royal navy ; and therefore that the Earl of Sussex, Sir Christopher Blunt, and others, were not captains of those ships against which their names are placed, but only of the soldiers embarked in them. Many of the vessels, however, he says, appear to have been as completely fitted for war, in respect to cannon and other points of equipment, as the queen's ships, and in force and build little inferior to them. ROBERT DEVEREUX 87 contributed largely toward the outfit at their own hazard, were appointed lords-general, with equal authority both by sea and land ; and as their council of war the Lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh were nominated for the naval service. Sir Francis Vere and Sir Conyers Clifford for the military, and, as a fifth. Sir George Carew, lieutenant of the ordnance : before any matter was put in execution, or any resolution taken, these persons were to give their opinions, without any private respect for love or fear, as they would answer before God. Jn difficult cases the two generals might add to the council eight counsellors, each in equal number, as they might think good ; and Anthony Ashley, one of the clerks of the privy council, was appointed to keep a register of the voyage and of all consultations, together with their concur- rence in opinion, or their difference, with the causes thereof. In their instructions it was stated that the first intention of setting forth this fleet was in consequence of the common report that the Spaniards were preparing a greater armada than that of 1588, intending with one part thereof to invade England, and with the other to assist the rebels in Ireland. A good number, however, of the ships made ready with that design had been sent to pursue Drake and Hawkins in their expedition, and some others despatched to the Indies ; so that there was not a probable cause to apprehend any great attempt at invasion, but still a likelihood that some number of ships would be sent with men and money to Ireland ; and the most certain means of preventing this was by burning the King of Spain's men-of-war in his havens, and destroying his magazines of victuals, and his munitions for arming his navy. The queen expressed her grief for adventuring the persons of the two commanders, and for want of their attendance on her as principal counsellors ; and she charged them to avoid manifest danger to her ships or her people by hazarding them in any desperate action : they should be spared for service in defending their own country, rather than spend their lives in doubtful actions of offence abroad, without any public benefit answerable to such loss ; and to these admonitions she hoped the lords-general would have the more regard, seeing they well knew how loth she was to have her subjects wasted or hazarded in any foreign actions. This attempt upon the said ships, staples, and magazines, was only to be in ports that had great richeSj and where they 88 ENGLISH SEAMEN should probably understand that the town was not able to defend itself, and that the riches had not been removed into the interior : in such case an attack might be ventured, provided it was by good deliberation of council found sperable to be achieved, without hazarding their own lives, or the lives of those serving under them ; but they were jointly and severally charged not to attempt any doubtful action in hope of gain. And in the execution they were to take care that no slaughter should be made of any people, except they should by force withstand, and put them in manifest danger ; and the slaughter of any women, children, and aged men not able to bear arms, was absolutely forbidden. Such a prohibition was not un- necessary in that age."^ Early in May the lords -general repaired to Plymouth, "there to complete the full number of all such companies, both for sea and land, as was in their noble and deep wisdom thought meet and agreed upon". "At the time of their abode there," says one who was in the expedition, "there was a most zealous and diligent care had for the holy service of God daily and reverently to be frequented ; and also for other good and civil orders of military discipline to be observed, to the exceeding great comfort and rejoicing of all the hearts of the godly and well-disposed." To show that there was small hope of pardon to be expected by offenders, one man was ex- ecuted for beginning a mutiny in his company, another for de- sertion ; and a soldier in the Dutch regiment who had killed one of his comrades in a quarrel about their drink, was, by order of martial law, presently tied to the party so murdered, and cast into the sea. Another for theft was set in the bilboes, after- wards ducked from the yard-arm ; and then having been presented with a can of beer, a pound of bread, and a pound of candles, was set ashore to shift as he could, according, as it seems, to the usage of his own country. "I- A certain lieutenant, * Lediard, i., 320, 323. t Malcolm's Londinum Redivivum, iii., 295. Malcolm seems not to have known that the account of the Cadiz voyage, which he describes as a most elegantly written manuscript in the British Museum, is printed in Hakluyt. But Hakluyt has not stated the author's name. It was written by Dr. Marbeck (M.D,), who attended upon the person of the right honour- able the Lord High Admiral of England all the time of the said action. There seems, however, to be passages in the manuscript which were omitted in the printed copy, or, possibly, inserted in a later transcript by the author. ROBERT DEVEREUX 89 being convicted of taking monies from some pressed men, and substituting others of less sufficiency in their stead, " was, by sound of drum, publicly in all streets disgraced ; or rather," says the writer, "after a sort, disgraded and cashiered from bearing any further office at that time. This severe exacting of justice at the very first did spread such a deep terror in the hearts of the whole army, that it seemed to cut off all occasion of the like disorder for ever afterwards to be attempted." * Essex soon found himself in a more difficult situation than any wherein he had yet been placed. In a letter to Bacon he says, " I have thought the contemplation of the art military harder than the execution ; but now I see, when the number is great, compounded of sea and land forces, the most tyrones, and almost all voluntaries, the officers equal almost in age, quality, and standing in the wars, it is hard for any man to approve himself a good commander. So great is my zeal to omit nothing, and so short my sufficiency to perform all, as, besides my charge, myself doth afflict myself. For I cannot follow the precedents of our dissolute armies ; and my helpers are a little amazed with me when they are come from govern- ing a little troop to a great ; and sometimes I am as much troubled with them as with all the troops." f The lords -general, indeed, found it neither easy to raise the intended force, nor to rely upon the men when raised. The queen complained that their despatches were very strange, and filled with commonplace doubts and fears, which were as easily answered as made. They had doubted their powers in some points. "When you had digested our army in such form as you had liked," said the queen, "then if you had advertised me simpliciter only, that you must have better warrant, you should not have wanted it ; and we should then have thought that which you use now a substantial reason, not to be only a formality, as now we hold it, and as all your arguments discover it. For that other material reason which you insist, that you must use swords to compel them, our letter answered it, we hope : that for the gentlemen that would go willingly, and that do go out ot voluntary spirits to accompany you, you might use your discretions ; and for the rest that would tarry, you might of our monies pay them. And for the payment of volunteers, we trust they would as * Hakluyt, i., 607. f Bacon (Montague's edition), xiii., 91. 90 ENGLISH SEAMEN soon have taken our assurance as yours. So as they that are desirous to go in the action, if the meanest, for their own particular need not be deprived of their hopes, if they will follow it ; and the rest have nullum arhitrium. For your mutinies or such disobediences feared, we that make armies know that we can dissolve them at our pleasure ; and though not without charge and some difficulty, yet far from such ex- tremities. If we had meant to have done anything abruptly, without caution, or without almost to seek your own opinions, and to descend always to conditions, to satisfy you, we could long ere this have directly untied this knot, made by you so intricate. And this we further will say, that though we meant to drive it to the last consideration and uttermost debate, as much as could be, yet we compared times so sufficiently, as a prince who knows what belongs to such a matter, that nothing should be done to retard you (being ready) one hour. And therefore, seeing no harm is done by us, and that all our injury to you hath been to over-tender you, we will now leave you to God's providence, and wish you all happiness, conclud- ing with David, liberavi animam meam. We do also require you to make known to the army how dearly we wish them the favour of Almighty God, as sent by that prince whose trust is in His providence, and whose precious care for their preservation is beyond our tongue to utter." * The conscientious feeling with which Elizabeth conducted the whole course of her foreign policy was expressed in a prayer which she composed at this time upon the setting forth of the present armament, and which was justly esteemed to be most excellent, as well for the matter as the manner. It was in these words: — "Most Omnipotent Maker and Guide of all our world's mass, that only searchest and fathomest the bottom of all our hearts' conceits, and in them seest the true originals of all our actions intended ; Thou that by thy fore- sight dost truly discern how no malice of revenge, nor quittance of injury, nor desire of bloodshed, nor greediness of lucre, hath bred the resolution of our now set out army ; but a heedful care, and wary watch, that no neglect of foes nor over- surety of harm might breed either danger to us, or glory to them : these being the grounds wherewith Thou dost inspire the mind, we humbly beseech Thee with bended knees prosper * Lediard, 323, 324. ROBERT DEVEREUX 91 the work, and with best fore winds guide the journey, speed the victory, and make the return the advancement of Thy glory, the triumph of their fame, and surety to the realm, with the least loss of English blood. To these devout peti- tions. Lord, give thou thy blessed grant ! " * Another feature of Elizabeth's character is curiously dis- played in a letter which she wrote at this time with her own hand to Essex ; she says in this, " Though all the careful heed that can be poured on one, and thoughts full bent to save from ill that may befall in the scorning all good hopes, and treading on all charge, be not enough to graceless thankful- ness, to yield but gratias for such uncouched, yea unheard of goodness ; (I cannot but wonder how our soil ever brought forth such fruit, and could not till now have believed to find such guerdon for such meat ; — but passi graviora) ; yet, for all this, to verify that our revenge is so likened to earthly gods', who show more benignity than they find cause, I make this humble bill of request to Him that all makes and does, that with His benign hand He will shadow you so as all harm may light beside you, and all that may be best hap to your share ; that your return may make you better, and me gladder. Let your companion, my most faithful Charles, be sure that his name is not left out in this petition. God bless you both, as I would be, if I were there ; which, whether I wish or not. He alone doth know." f Great anxiety indeed was expressed for Essex, as if much depended upon his single life. The lord high admiral was charged not to let him expose him- self to danger, unless it were upon great necessity ; | and Bacon, presenting in a letter to the earl his deepest and most bounden duty, in the fulness whereof he mourned for his absence, added, "I mitigate it as I can, with the hope of your happy success ; the greatest part whereof, be it never so great, will be the safety of your most honourable person ; for the which, in the first place, and then for the prosperity of your enterprise, I frequently pray".§ In the instructions issued to the captains of ships, the captain was required to give advice that the ship's way was kept clean daily, and sometimes washed, which, with God's favour, would preserve from sickness and avoid many other * Hakluyt, i., 608. Strype's Annals^ Appendix cl. fLediard, 323. Xlhid., 331. % Bacon, xiii., 90. 92 ENGLISH SEAMEN inconveniences : in case of sickness they were to distribute among the men such good things as were to be had, that were needful for them. And first of all things, special care was enjoined to serve God by using of common prayers twice every day, except urgent cause enforced the contrary; and that no man, soldier or mariner, do dispute of matters of religion, unless it were to be resolved of some doubts, and in such case that he confer with the ministers of the army. ''For it is not fit," said the lords-general, ''that unlearned men should openly argue of so high and mystical matters. And if any person shall forget himself and his duty herein, he shall, upon knowledge thereof, receive due punishment to his shame, and after be banished the army. And if any shall hear it, and not reveal it to our generals or to his captain, or some other especial officer, by whom the knowledge thereof may come to us, he shall likewise receive punishment and be . banished the army." The watch was to be set every night, with saying the Lord's Prayer and some of the Psalms. No report or talk was to be raised in the fleet whereby any officer or gentleman in it might be touched in reputa- tion ; nor any matter of importance spoken, without naming the author, who should be surely punished as an evil number."^ Before the expedition sailed, a manifesto drawn up by Burleigh, and addressed to all Christian people, showing the great and urgent reasons wherefore the queen at that time set forth so great a navy, was published in Latin, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish, "to the intent that it might appear to the world that Her Majesty avowed only to defend herself and offend her enemies, and not to offend any other that should forbear to strengthen her enemy, but to use them with all lawful favour". All persons who, not being natural subjects of the King of Spain, had given him aid with ships and stores, were required herein to withdraw all their said ships prepared for war, and all their provisions of hostility out of any haven of Spain or Portugal, or from the company and service of the King of Spain's ships : so doing they should be used in all sorts as friends ; but all who refused this reason- able request, tending to their good and liberty, should justly and by the law of arms be treated as manifest aiders of the * Lediard, 324, 328. ROBERT DEVEREUX 93 Spaniard to invade Her Majesty's dominions, and so manifest enemies.* "Thus then," says Marbeck, "all things being in very good order and well appointed, the most holy name of our omni- potent God being most religiously and devoutly called upon, and his blessed and sacred communion being divers times most reverently and publicly celebrated, these two most noble personages, with all their honourable associates, and most famous worthy knights, gentlemen, captains, leaders, and very willing and expert soldiers and mariners, being furnished with 450 good sail of ships, or thereabouts, in the name of the most high and everlasting God, and with all true and faithful obedience to Her Sacred Majesty, to the infinite good and tranquillity of our country, and to the perpetual glory and triumphant renown of the eternal memory of their honourable names to all posterity, the first day of June embarked them- selves, weighed anchor, and hoisted up sail, and put to sea onward their journey from the sound of Plymouth." Their departure was expedited by the great exertions of the com- manders of the queen's ships, who in their own persons laboured the night before to get out some of the vessels riding at Catwater, which otherwise had not been easily effected. The wind presently scanted, and they were fain to come again to anchor till the morning of the third.f The wind then, which when they weighed was at west and by south, instantly came up to the north-east ; and this was the first happiness of the voyage, putting them in great hopes of a lucky success to ensue ; " for our soldiers being shipt and in harbour," says Monson,J "would have consumed their victuals, and have been so pestered, that it would have endangered a sickness amongst them ". This favourable wind brought them on the 9th near to the North Cape of Spain. They kept, however, out of sight of land ; and bearing them more to the west, sealed instructions were delivered to every master and captain of the ships, thus indorsed under the superscription, " Open not these letters on pain of your lives, unless you chance to be scattered by tempest ; and in that case open them, and execute the con- tents thereof. But if by mishap you fall into your enemies' * Lediard, 329. Strype, Appendix cxciii. t Hakluyt, 605. X Ibid., i6g. 94 ENGLISH SEAMEN handS; then in any case cast them into the sea, sealed as they are." Accordingly to Marbeck, no man in the fleet suspected whither they were bound. " If there was ever/' he says, ''any great designment in this our age and memory, discretely, faith- fully, and closely carried, I assure myself it was this ; and though it were but in respect of that point only, yet for such faithful secrecy it deserve th immortal praise." ^ This, indeed, is the most remarkable circumstance in the expedition ; the Spaniards, who on other occasions obtained timely intelligence of all the English plans, received no information from any of their agents at this time. The fleet was divided into five squadrons, under Essex, the lord high admiral, the Lord Thomas Howard, Raleigh, and the Dutch admiral, the Jonkheer Johan van Duvenvoorde, Heer van Warmont. "All which squadrons, albeit they did every day separate themselves by the distance of certain leagues, as well to look out for such ships as were haply under sail, as also for the better procuring of sea room, yet always, commonly either that day or the next, toward evening, they came all together, with friendly salutations and congratulations one to another, which they term by the name of hailing ; a ceremony done solemnly and in very good order, with sound of trumpets and noise of cheerful voices ; and in such sort performed as was no small encouragement one to the other, besides a true report of all such accidents as had happened in their squadrons. Thus spreading the whole sea over a mighty way, there could not so much as the least pink pass but she was espied and brought in." The three best sailers of the fleet were appointed to run ahead, suspecting the Spaniards would have sent out some caravels of advice, as they usually did upon any rumour of naval preparations in England. The first vessels that were brought in were a French barque and a Fleming, coming from the Barbary coast ; they were very honourably and well used by the lords -general, and after a few days' tarrying, when they had conferred with them about such matters as were thought good in their honourable wisdoms, were peaceably sent away. Two days afterwards. Sir Richard Levison and Sir Christopher Blunt brought in three Hamburg hers, but not without a fight, in which two of the Germans were killed and eleven wounded. "And this," says Marbeck, "was the very * Hakluyt, 609. ROBERT DEVEREUX 95 first hansell of any matter of importance, or exploit worthy observation, that was done in the way outward of this honour- able voyage, and was so well performed of those most worthy gentlemen, as every man highly commended them for their great valour and discretion." The next day a Fleming refused to vail his foretop to Sir Richard Weston in the Swan. An action ensued, and continued very hot between them for a good space ; in the end, the Swan had her forebeak stricken off, and having spent before in fight the one side of her tier of ordnance, while she prepared to cast about and to bestow on him the other side, the Fleming, taking that opportunity, made his escape : but on the morrow, when he had got to the very mouth of the Tagus, he was taken and brought in by Master Darrel, captain of the John and Francis of London. This, Monson * says, was the most fortunate of all the propitious circumstances in this voyage ; for if that vessel " had reached Lisbon, she had been able to make report of the number and greatness of our ships, and might have endangered the loss of the whole design, she seeing the course we bore, and that we had passed Lisbon, which was the place the enemy most suspected, and made there his greatest preparation for defence. Had he been freed of that doubt, he had then no place to fear but Andalusia, and Cadiz above the rest, which, upon the least warning, might have been strengthened, and we put to great hazard. He might also have secured his ships by towing them out with galleys, and howsoever the wind had been, might have sent them into the straits, where it had been in vain to have pursued them ; or over the bar of San Lucar, where there had been no attempting of them." Another and "little less happiness" was the capture of some fly-boats from Cadiz. f From these they learned that * Hakluyt, 169. t In one of these " was a young beggarly friar, with a great packet of letters for Lisbon. The poor wretches were marvellously well used by the lords-general ; and the friar, being utterly unlearned, made pretty mirth to the company." " About this time," says Marbeck, " and in this place it was, that first in all my life I saw the flying fishes ; for standing with that most sweet virtuous gentleman, Sir William Howard, upon the upper deck of the Ark, we took great delight to see the dolphins and bonetoes, coursing one of another in manner of our playing at bars." He describes their wings as being •• shaped of nature very cunningly, and with great delight to behold ; in all the world much like to our gentlewomen's Dutch fans, that are made either of paper, or parchment, or silk, or other stuff, which will with 96 ENGLISH SEAMEN there was no apprehension in that city of an attack ; and that the galleons from San Lucar were daily expected there, and what merchantmen were lying there ready bound for the Indies. "These intelligences were of great moment, and made the generals presently to contrive their business both by sea and land, which otherwise would have taken up longer time after their coming thither." "And whether," says Monson, "all men would have consented to attempt their ships in harbour, if they had not known the most part of them to consist of merchants, I hold very doubtful." "Lord God!" says Marbeck, ''what a sudden rejoicing there was throughout the whole navy, and how nimble every man was to prepare himself! " * On the 20th, being Sunday, they came before Cadiz very early in the morning, and sooner than the masters had made reckoning of They presented themselves before the town, riding about a league from it, or somewhat less. No fleet ever arrived at its intended scene of action in better condi- tion, both as to the state of the ships, and the health of the men.*)- The sea at that time "went marvellous high, and the wind was exceeding large; nevertheless, after holding a council, the lords-general attempted, with all expedition, to land some companies at the west side of the town, by certain long-boats, light-horsemen, pinnaces, and barges made for the purpose. But they could not compass it ; and in at- tempting thereof, they chanced to sink one of their barges, with some fourscore good soldiers, well appointed, in her ; yet by good luck and great care the men were all saved excepting eight, f As soon as the English had presented certain plaits easily run and fold themselves together. One of these flying fishes was presented to my lord admiral, by a fisherman, newly taken, on his return from Cadiz, and then I had good leisure and oppor- tunity to view it " (Malcolm's Londinum, iii., 296. Hakluyt, i., 610). * Malcolm, iii., 296. f Being all in good plight and strong. In all this time as yet, the whole navy had not lost either by sickness, or by any other manner of way, six men to my knowledge. As for the Dutch company, I am not able precisely to say what happened them, for that they were no part of our charge to be looked unto, but were a regiment entire of themselves, and by themselves to be provided for, either for their diet, or for the pre- servation of their health by physic (Hakluyt, i., 610). J Hakluyt, i., 610. "That morning, very timely, there lighted a very fair dove upon the mainyard of the lord admiral's ship ; and there she sate very quietly for the space of three or four hours, being nothing dis- ROBERT DEVEREUX 97 themselves, a goodly sort of tall Spanish ships came out of the mouth of the bay, the galleys accompanying them, in such good order, and so placed, as all of them might well succour each other, and therewithal they kept themselves close to their town, the castles, and the forts, for their better guard and defence, abiding there, and expecting our further deter- mination. All that day passed, being very rough and boister- ous ; and little or nothing could be done, more than that about evening there passed some friendly and kind salutation sent from one to the other in warlike manner, by discharging certain great pieces ; but to my knowledge," says the doctor, "no hurt done at all, or else very little." During the day, messengers were continually passing be- tween the two lords-general ; and in the end they concurred in the advice which Monson, who was Essex's captain, had offered in the morning : this was, that they should attack the ships, and obtain possession of the harbour before they attempted to land. But when this was resolved on, there arose a great question who should have the honour of first going in. Essex claimed it for himself: he was withstood by the lord admiral, who knew that if he miscarried it would hazard the overthrow of the action ; and who, moreover, had been charged by the queen not to let the earl expose himself, except upon great necessity. The whole council having, upon this point, agreed against Essex, Monson was sent by him that night on board the Ark Royal (the lord admiral's ship) to resolve who should be appointed for that service.* It was assigned at first to Raleigh, and Raleigh received advice ac- cordingly ; but Lord Thomas Howard hearing this, insisted that, as vice-admiral, it was his right to lead the van ; and as a matter of right it was allowed. -j- mayed all that while ; every man gazed and looked much upon her, and spake their minds and opinions, yet all concluding by no means to disquiet her. I, for my part, took it for a very good omen and boding, as in truth (God be thanked !) there fell out nothing in the end to the contrary. And as at our first coming to Cadiz this chanced, so likewise, on the very last day of our departing from the same town, another dove presented herself in the self-same order to the same ship, and presently grew wonderful tame and familiar to us all ; and did so still keep us company, even till our arrival here in England." * Monson, i6g. t Marbeck represents this as an acknowledgment of Howard's superior seamanship, — not of his right. He says, " In most men's opinions it seemed that the enemy had a wonderful advantage of us, all circumstances being 7 98 ENGLISH SEAMEN "On Monday, between five and six in the morning, wind and weather having become moderate and favourable, our ships moved forward, in name of Almighty God, and in defence of the honour of England. When they had been first perceived on the yesterday, the Spaniards singled out their four galleons to guard the merchantmen, and placed their galleys to flank the enemy with their prows ; but now when the English were seen approaching, the merchants ran up the river, the galleys betook themselves to the guard of the town, and the men-of- war brought themselves into a good order of fight, mooring their ships ahead and astern to have their broadside upon us." Notwithstanding the order which had been appointed, Raleigh came first to anchor ; not, as it appears, in disrespect well weighed, but especially the straightness of the place, and the natural form and situation of the bay itself being rightly considered. For albeit the bay itself is very large and exceeding beautiful, so that from Cadiz to Port St. Mary is some six or seven English miles over, or thereabouts, yet be there many rocks, shelves, sands, and shallows in it, so that the very channel and place for sea room is not above two or three miles, yea, and in some places not so much, for the ships of any great burthen to make way in, but they must either be set on ground, or else constrained to run foul one on another ; wherefore, upon a great consultation, held by a select council, what great dangers might ensue upon so mighty a disad- vantage as appeared, in all probability, if it were not by good and sound judgment prevented : and therewith all in their singular wisdom foreseeing that some great stratagem might be practised by the enemy, either by fire- works, or by some other politic design, for the hazarding of her majesty's ships of honour in so narrow a place — that, with all expedition, they con- cluded that the vice-admiral, the Lord Thomas Howard (that most noble Lord Howard, whose exceeding great magnanimity, courage, and wisdom, joined with such an honourable kind of sweet courtesy, bounty, and liberality, as is not able by me and my weakness to be expressed, hath won him all the faithful loving hearts of as many as ever have had any manner of dealing with him) — this Lord Thomas, I say, in the Non- pareille for that time, and the rear-admiral Sir Walter Raleigh (a man of marvellous great worth and regard, for many his exceeding singular great virtues, right fortitude, and great resolution in all matters of im- portance), in the War spite, associated with divers most famous worthy knights — namely, Sir Francis Vere, the lord marshal, in the Rainbow ; Sir George Carey, master of the ordnance, in the Mary Rose ; Sir Robert • Southwell, in the Lion (gentlemen for all laudable good virtues, and for perfect counsel and discretion in all military actions, of as great praise arid good desert as any gentlemen of their degree whatsoever) ; having with them some of the ships of London, and some of the Dutch squadron of reasonable burthen, — should lead the dance and give the onset: and that the two most noble lords-general, and some others of their com- panions should, in their convenient time and order, second the main battle" (Hakluyt, 6ii). ROBERT DEVEREUX 99 of authority, but from some misapprehension, having had orders over night to ply in ; by some mishap he anchored at such a distance from the Spaniards that he could not annoy them, and therefore found it necessary to go himself on board the Repulse, and explain in his own justification to Essex that he had been obliged to anchor there for want of water to go higher. This would have been an unfortunate circumstance for any man of questionable courage ; and it was thought strange at the time that the Spanish vessels, which drew much more water than the Warspite, and had no more ad- vantage of tide, could pass where he could not. But Sir Francis Vere, in the Rainbow, whose orders were to second the Warspite, passed her ; and Raleigh then weighed a second time, and went higher, taking his course directly against the Spanish men-of-war, which presently fell back.* Essex had promised to keep in the midst of the fleet ; but no sooner was the action becoming hot, than he "whose in- finite princely virtues with triumphant fame," says Marbeck, "deserve to be immortalised, upon a sudden, and unlooked for of others, thrust himself among the foremost into the main battle. It was his captain. Sir William Monson, who, pro- bably out of eagerness to be in the heat of action himself, excited him to this, by observing to him that the greatest service would depend upon three or four ships ; and telling him to be mindful of his honour, for many eyes beheld him." He had thrown up his hat for joy when the orders for attack were given ; and pressing forward now, came in good time to the support of Vere, whom the galleys were entertaining roughly from their foredecks, while they themselves lay under protection of the town. His colleague, the lord admiral, seeing this, and understanding from his master that his own ship, the Ark Royal, could not get into action because of its draft, went with his son aboard the Mere Honour.-^ This brought him nearer the scene, but not into the action ; for there was not water enough for the ship to go up. Lord Thomas Howard therefore had left her, and got on board Sir Robert Dudley's ship, the Non-pareille ; but with no better success than his noble kinsman. Essex, Vere, and Raleigh had taken up the best part of the channel where * Monson, 170. t So, in sailors' English, Monson always calls the Honour de la Mer. 100 ENGLISH SEAMEN they anchored, and it was so narrow that no other of the queen's ships could pass. Few as the ships were that were engaged, there must have been the most complete assurance of success ; for Monson says orders were given that none but the queen's ships should shoot, making account that the honour would be the greater if the victory were obtained with so few.* One who beheld it says that the fight was very terrible, and most hideous to the beholders by the continual dis- charging of those roaring thundering great pieces on all sides, and so continued doubtful till about one or two of the clock. During that time the loss of the English in killed and wounded did not much exceed one hundred, "notwithstanding divers of our ships were many times shot through and through, yea, and some of them, by credible report of the captains and masters themselves, no less than two and twenty times. In the heat of the action one of the Dutch fly-boats, who had in all the conflict carried himself very well and valiantly, was, through great negligence and misfortune, fired by his own powder, and blown up. There could not, by all supposal, have been fewer in him than 100 fighting men, and in the very twinkling of an eye both ship and men were all cast away, except some seven or eight, who by great care and diligence of some other ships were saved. On board this unfortunate vessel, the Dolphin of Rotterdam, the captain, Willem Hendrickszoon, and his two sons, perished. This greatly encouraged the Spaniards, and was hailed with shouts of exultation from the town.-j- Their joy was of no long continuance. The St. Philip, the Spanish admiral, of 1500 tons, early I in the afternoon had suffered so severely that the men lost heart, and sought to save themselves by swimming to shore. Whether they set fire to the ship before they left it, or whether it was blown up by a Moorish slave in revenge for his own sufferings, and perhaps his wrongs, was *Hakluyt, 6ii. Monson, 169, 170. f Hakluyt, 612. X " About four," according to Monson, " the Spaniards set sail, thinking either to run higher up the river, or else to bring their other broadsides to us, because of the heat of their ordnance. But, howsoever it was, in their floating they came aground, and the men began to forsake the ships, whereupon it was ordered that all the hoys and vessels that drew least water should go to them." It was then, he says, that the Philip and Thomas fired themselves. I have preferred the contemporary account to his recollections, which were written some forty years afterwards. ROBERT DEVEHEtrX ' 101 never ascertained ; but an argosi and another great ship took fire in consequence, and were both destroyed. Two galleons, the Si. Matthejv and St. Andrew, of 1^200 tons each, were captured ; the rest ran ashore, and most of the galleys creep- ing along the coast made the best of their way towards the Puente de Zuazo." " Immediately, upon this notable victory, without any farther stay in all the world, the lord general, the Earl of Essex, put to shore, and landed about 3000 shot and pikemen." Essex's measures were, indeed, taken as promptly, and with as little deliberatio-n as the author of his "honourable voyage" implies in these words. He landed in a sandy bay, commanded by the fort Puntal, which the garrison abandoned without at- tempting either to oppose his landing, or to defend their post. Taking possession of this, he then considered what was to be done ; and as he could be annoyed from the main- land only by the Puente de Zuazo, he despatched half of his force under Sir Conyers Clifford, Sir Christopher Blunt, and Sir Thomas Barrett, to win that bridge. He sent a messenger also to the lord admiral entreating him to give orders for attempting the merchant ships in Puerto Real, lest the Spaniards should convey away their wealth, and, perhaps, after the example of the St. Philip, set fire to them : a night's respite, he said, was dangerous. When the lord admiral received this message he was in his boat, about to land with his seamen ; lest the earl, who had only three regiments with him, should be dis- tressed by a superior force. The queen having so particularly charged him to have especial care for Essex's safety, he Iboked upon that as the object of most moment ; and hastened to support him, leaving orders to attack the ships on the following day. The evil of a divided command was felt now. Monson had advised Essex to attempt the ships instead of the town, whether he regarded wealth or honour. For the riches in the ships could not be concealed, or carried away, as in towns they might ; and the ships themselves being brought to England would be always before men's eyes there, and put them in mind of the greatness of the exploit. As for the town, perhaps it might be soon won, but probably not long enjoyed, and so quickly forgotten. ''To speak indifferently," he says, "though the earl's carriage and forwardness merited much, yet if it had been with less haste it would have succeeded better. By his sudden landing without the lord admiral's 102 ' ENGLISH SEAMEN privity, and his giving advice by a messenger to attempt the ships, which should have been resolved upon mature deliber- ation, no doubt the lord admiral found his honour a little eclipsed ; which, perhaps, hastened his landing for his reputa- tion's sake, whereas he thought it more advisable to have possessed himself of their ships." * Having sent this message, which his own conduct rendered unavailing, Essex, with about 1500 men, advanced towards the town. It was about three miles' march ; " the time of the day hot and faint, and the way all of dry, deep, sliding sand, in a manner ; and beside that very uneven, and by that means so tiresome and painful as might be". The Spaniards, a reasonable number both of horse and foot, some distance without the town, were drawn up in readiness to encounter them, but they gave way when the English came fiercely on, and in good order, though rather running than marching ; * Monson, 470. Essex, in a defence of his conduct, which Lediard has printed from the Cotton MSS., complains that his opinion had thus far always been disregarded. "If," he says, "I had been followed the first morning of our coming before that harbour, when I bore with it ; or, if we had entered the same Sunday in the afternoon, when we were under sail, and within cannon-shot of the enemy's fleet ; or, after the men-of-war were taken, and burnt the next day, if any of our shipping had gone up, as I urged by my own speech, by message sent to Sir Anthony Ashley (who, being secretary of war, was to record every man's services or omissions ) ; if any of these had been done, then I say had that fleet been easily possessed. For, the first morning, they had neither their men on board (as it was since confessed by our prisoners), nor were they pro- vided of any counsel what to do for their preservation. In the afternoon of the same day, we had found the men-of-war and the merchant ships all together in one body, and engaged them both at once ; so as, at the same time as we had defeated the one, we had possessed the other. And the next day, presently upon the fight and victory against the king's ships, we had found them all so amazed and confounded, as they would have thought of nothing but saving themselves, and we had taken the ships, and the riches in them, without striking a blow ; as our prisoners, and captives redeemed out of the said galleys, have assured us. But the first morning, when I bore with the harbour, almost all the fleet came to an anchor by the point of St. Sebastian, a league wide of me, and gave the enemy leisure to send men and all necessaries aboard. When I was going in, in the afternoon, I could neither get my company to weigh their anchors, nor most of those that were weighed to go in with us ; and the next day I had much ado to make our ships fight at all. And, when God had given us victory, neither my persuasions nor protestations could make them that were sea- commanders go up or send to possess the fleet of the Indies whilst we assailed the town, so as that the enemy had almost forty-eight hours to burn his own ships." ROBERT DEVEREUX 103 and their retreat was made with such expedition, that before the assailants could come up with the enemy the gates were closed. By means of an unfinished work near the gate some of them got upon the walls, and leapt down, " about a pike's length". Evans, the Earl of Sussex's lieutenant, Arthur Savage, captain of Essex's company, and Pooly, who carried his red ensign, were among the first who thus entered the town. At the same time the gate was forced ; Essex and Sir Francis Vere broke in, and made their way towards the market-place, with sword and shot, being still fought withal at every turn. Here most resistance was made, the houses being so built that every one served for a platform ; thus, wheresoever the assailants moved, they were sorely flanked, and annoyed with stones from the flat roofs. But there had been httle preparation for this kind of defence.* "One house, more than the rest, seemed most dangerous." Monson asked for fifty old soldiers of the Low Countries, that he might assault it : they were granted. In the attack the pummel of his sword was shot from his side ; as he stooped for it. Sir John Wingfield, who was beside him on horseback, and who had just been wounded in the thigh, asked him if he was hurt ; and " they were the last words that that bravest of commanders ever spoke, for at the same instant he received a ball in the head ". -j* At this time the lord admiral came up, having marched on foot with great speed, "notwithstanding his many years, the intolerable heat for the time, and the overtiring, tedious, deep sands". His colours were advanced before him "by * Marbeck says (614), " Every house was in a manner a kind effort or castle, altogether flat-roofed on the top, after the Turkish manner ; so that many men together, and that at ease, might walk thereon, having upon the house-top great heaps of weighty stones, piled up in such good order, as they were ready to be thrown down by every woman, most easily, upon such as past her ; and the streets for the most part so exceeding narrow (I think to avoid the excessive great heat of the sun) as but two men, or three at the most, together, can in any serviceable sort march through them ; no street being wider commonly than I suppose Watling Street in London to be". This mode of defence has been practised wherever there are flat-roofed houses, and is as old as the days of Abime- lech. But the people of Cadiz never expected to be attacked on shore ; and it does not appear that of the little loss which the conquerors sus- tained any part of it was occasioned in this manner. t "By the way," says Monson, "this I note, that as the sword is the death of many a man, so it hath twice been the preserver of my life ; once at the island of St. Mary's, in 1589, and now at Cadiz, in 1596 " (p. 470). 104 ENGLISH SEAMEN that valiant resolute gentleman (a man beautified with many excellent rare gifts of learning and understanding), Sir Edward Hobby ". Raleigh and the seamen were with this division. Before eight o'clock all mustered in the town. " The loss had been about 200 killed and wounded of the English ;"* of the enemy, "not very many to speak of" ; an expression which seems to imply that their loss had been less. Only the castle held out, and for a while fired upon the invaders at times from some battering-pieces. It was signified to the garrison that they must look for no mercy unless they surrendered before morning ; and that summons produced a kind of in- termission,- while they deliberated. Nevertheless there are many alarms given during the night which bred great outrages and disorder in the town. "At every which alarm," says Marbeck, "the lords-general showed themselves marvellous ready and forward ; insomuch, that scarce well furnished with any more defence than their shirts, hose, and doublets, and those too altogether in a manner untied, they were abroad in the streets themselves, to see the uttermost of it " — it may seem strange that they should have even partially un- dressed. Before daybreak a flag of truce was hung out from the castle ; and the place was yielded upon the humiliating terms, — that the inhabitants should depart in safety with the garments which they had on, leaving everything else for the conquerors ; f that a certain sum should be paid as their ransom ; J and that forty of the principal citizens should be sent to England as hostages for the payment. "Present proclamation was then made, that all men should surcease from all manner of bloody and cruel dealing, and that there should no kind of violence or hard usage be offered to any, either man, woman, or child, upon pain of death." § The * Strype, No. 209. " God make us all thankful to him," says Sir Anthony Ashley. " He did mightily defend us, otherwise we had been all slain that entered first into the forts of the town walls." t Camden, 530. Jin Hakluyt and Camden it is stated at 520,000 ducats. Lediard follows them ; and Stowe says 620,000. Stowe's, no doubt, is an acci- dental error. But Peter Bor and Monson agree in stating it at 120,000 ; and this is likely to be the true account, when we remember that nothing valuable except the ornaments of the women was allowed to be taken away. § Marbeck says (613), *' This honourable and merciful edict, I am sure, was straightly and religiously observed of the English. But how well it ROBERT DEVEREUX 105 inhabitants were conveyed to Puerto Santa Maria in English vessels. The ladies, it is said, were suffered to depart in their richest* apparel and jewels, and while they were going on board the generals stood by the water side, to protect them from any insult or injury. "The noble treating of the prisoners," says Monson, "has gained everlasting honour to our nation, and the generals in particular." The spoil of so much of the city as the generals thought meet, was then permitted to the soldiers for a certain number of days.-f But neither those who adventured for the hope of gain in this expedition, or for the love of adventure and the desire of glory, were the persons who had most reason to rejoice in the victory. Eight and thirty Turks, who had long laboured at the oar as galley slaves, escaped from that most miserable state of captivity by swimming ashore : they presented them- selves to the English commanders and craved their mercy. "It pleased their most honourable lordships with all speed to apparel them, and to furnish them with money and all other necessaries, and to bestow on them a barque and a pilot, to see them freely and safely conveyed into Barbary ; telling them to let that country understand what was done, and what they had seen." X Raleigh had been wounded in the leg by a splinter; he was nevertheless carried ashore on men's shoulders. The lord admiral sent him a horse ; but after an hour's endurance he was kept by the Dutch I will neither affirm nor yet deny. For, I per- ceive, between them and the Spaniards there is an implacable heart-burn- ing. And therefore, as soon as the Dutch squadron was espied in the fight, immediately thereupon both they of Seville and St. Lucar, and also of some other places, did not only arrest all such Dutch ships as dealt with them friendly by the way of traffic and merchandise, and so confiscated their goods, but also imprisoned the merchants and owners of the same, and, as report goeth, did entreat many of them with extreme cruelty there- upon." * " A hundred or more of the better sort of ancient gentlewomen and merchants' wives were suffered to put upon themselves, some of them two, yea, some three suits of apparel, with some convenient quantity of many jewels, chains, and other ornaments belonging to their estate and degree. Such was the heroical liberality and exceeding great clemency of these most honourable lords-general, thereby, as it should seem unto us, beating down that false-conceived opinion which hath been hitherto commonly spread abroad, and settled among the Spaniards ; which is, that the Eng- lish do trouble them and their countries more for their gold, riches, and pearls, etc., than for any other just occasion " (Marbeck), t Hakluyt, 613. Z^bid., 617. 106 ENGLISH SEAMEN was no longer able to remain in the town, partly owing to extreme pain, and the danger of being shouldered in the press by the tumultuous soldiers, who, he says, "being then given to spoil and rapine, had no respect". He went, there- fore, on board that night, '^ chiefly for that there was no admiral left to order the fleet, and, indeed, few or no people in the navy, all running headlong to the sack ; and secondly, because he was unfit for aught but rest at that time". At daybreak he sent to the general, requesting an order to attack the Indian fleet, which lay in Puerto Real Road, and could not escape. But he received no answer, and seems hardly to have expected one, for the town, he says, being new taken, and the confusion great, it was hardly possible for them to order many things at once. The Spaniards managed better, both those whose sole motive was their own interest, and those who acted according to the spirit of their Government. The merchants offered 2,000,000 ducats as a ransom for their fleet ; its value was guessed at by the English to be twelve. Raleigh is said to have objected to the Spaniards* offer, and to have urged that they should take the ships first, and ransom them afterwards ; for they who now offered 2,000,000 would gladly give four to redeem them from the enemy's hands. "^ It is very possible that when free licence had been given to plunder in such a town as Cadiz, men enough could not have been brought together in a state for them to man the vessels for this enterprise ; a measure of such obvious prudence could otherwise not have been overlooked. It is said that the lord admiral objected -|- to any negotia- tion, saying he was sent to destroy the enemy's ships, not to release them for money. Yet the offer was entertained ; and while the terms were in dispute, the Spaniards unshipped with all possible alacrity the most valuable part of the goods. The Duque de Medina then gave orders to burn the ships : this measure offended and injured the owners more even than it disappointed those who were already in expectation of dividing the spoil. Three and thirty great ships laden for India were thus destroyed, besides five from St. Lucar. When some of the hostages went to Seville in order to raise the sum which had been agreed upon for the ransom of the prisoners * Triumphs of Nassau, igi. t Camden, 521. But Marbeck says, " their offer was not misliked, and would in all probability have been accepted" (p. 614). ROBERT DEVEREUX 107 at Cadiz, they were told that all Seville was not able to answer such a demand, so great was the loss which that city suffered in the destruction of the fleet.* The detachment which had been sent to occupy the Puente de Zuazo behaved in a manner which shows how little sub- ordination could at that time be expected either from officers or men. They had been ordered upon that service for the twofold object of preventing the galleys from making their way to the sea, and of guarding against the entrance of forces from the mainland. The people, who were assembled in great numbers on the side of the mainland, dispersed at their appearance ; and, contenting themselves with this dispersion, the English, as soon as they knew that Cadiz was taken, hastened to the spoil. Without waiting for orders, or taking possession of a fort near the bridge,-]- or occupying the bridge itself, back they sped, that they might not be too late for the pillage ; and the only good which resulted from this move- ment was that it accelerated the surrender of the castle, for the garrison supposed that the bridge was occupied by an enemy's force and that thus they were cut off from succour by land, as well as by sea. But the galleys, which it was the object of the commanders to intercept, passed the bridge in safety, breaking down some of the arches by means of a machine, and were conveyed through a narrow channel into the sea, on the south side of the peninsula. | Essex was standing with Vere and Monson on the castle of Cadiz, and saw these vessels making their way to Rota; and Monson told him, that by their escape his opportunity of keeping the town was lost. It was to have been supplied from Barbary, and Sir Edward Hobby was to have undertaken an embassy to Morocco, for the purpose of negotiating on that subject. These galleys, had they been captured, as they should have been, might have transported all the supplies from thence, whereas they would now be employed in cutting off such single and small ships as should be sent thither for relief. § * Monson. f Triumphs of Nassau, 191. X Camden says that the service upon which this detachment was sent was carefully and thoroughly performed (520). But Monson confirms the statement which I have followed. "At their first coming," he says, ••they were encountered by the enemy, but possessed themselves of the bridge with the loss of seven men ; but whether it was for the want of order, or for what other reasons they quitted it, I know not; and the galleys by this means escaped " (p. 170). § Monson, 243. 108 ENGLISH SEAMEN The town had been so cheaply won, that the English despised their enemies ; * but that they used their victory with more than what, in those times, was ordinary humanity, seems certain. The Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, were chiefly employed in transporting the inhabitants to Puerto St. Maria, especial care being taken that the religious of either sex should receive no injury. On the Saturday, Sir John Wingfield was buried in the "cathedral in honourable and warlike manner," the ships firing on the occasion. His re- mains might better have been committed to the deep, more than probable as it was that they would not be allowed to rest in a Roman Catholic church. That church was farther desecrated in the opinion of the Spaniards by an English service on the Sunday, "when a learned sermon was made there by Master Hopkins, the Earl of Essex his preacher, a man of good learning and sweet utterance". Before the sermon the two generals conferred the honour of knighthood upon about threescore persons who had distinguished them- selves -f either in the naval action, or in the capture of the town ; a few others had previously received it while they were dying of their wounds, as some consolation to their friends, and probably some satisfaction to themselves. * *' Thus much," says Marbeck (614), •' I can boldly affirm, that if the English had been possessed of this or the like town, and had been but half so well provided as they were, they would have defended it for two months at least, against any power in Christendom. Whether their hearts were chilled at the mighty overthrow by sea, or whether they were amazed at the invincible courage of the English, which was more than ordinary, caring no more for either small-shot or grape than in a manner for so many hailstones ; or whether the remorse of a guilty conscience towards the English nation, for their dishonourable and devilish practices against her sacred majesty and the realm ; or what other thing there was in it, I know not ; but be it spoken, to their perpetual shame and infamy, that there was never thing more resolutely performed of the courageous Eng- lish, nor more shamefully lost of the bragging Spaniards." t The honour was thought to have been lavishly bestowed ; and so indeed it seems, for so cheap a service. Hence the well-known rhymes : — " A gentleman of Wales, A knight of Cales, And a laird of the North Country ; But a yeoman of Kent, With his yearly rent. Can buy them out all three." ROBERT DEVEREUX 109 The lord admiral on his first* leisure took measures for procuring the deliverance of such of his countrymen as were prisoners among the Spaniards. He wrote a letter, which being translated into Latin was sent to the Duque de Medina, reminding him of the humane and generous treatment which the Spaniards who had fallen into the hands of the English, when he had the command in 1588, had received from the English Government, many thousands having been dismissed without ransom ; and trusting that the same spirit of honourable humanity would now be shown on the part of the Spaniards, he proposed an immediate exchange for his countrymen. The proposal was received as courteously as it was made, and thirty- nine Englishmen accordingly obtained their liberty : some of these had been lately taken in Drake's last voyage, but others had been there six, eight, or ten years, and some twenty-two and upwards, f The great object of the expedition had been accomplished. The Spanish treasury must be replenished and another navy constructed before England could again be disquieted by threat of an invasion. If Drake when he entered the bay of Cadiz had seized the King of Spain's beard, Essex had taken him by the throat ; and the earl was not willing to loose his hold : he was for keeping the town and island, a position which in our own days has been found tenable against any land force. Vere and many of the soldiers agreed with him. With 3000 troops, they said, the place might be maintained ; it would be a thorn, not in the foot of the Spaniard, but in his side ; supplies might be brought from opposite Barbary, from the Mediterranean and the Levant on one side, from England and the Netherlands on the other; the Spaniards would find it necessary to direct all their eiforts hitherward ; to this nook therefore would the brunt of the •"Which was when he returned on board the Ark, minding there to remain for a space, upon the advice of his physician (to wit, the relator, Dr. Marbeck), as indeed he did, to deal something in physic, for that his lordship found his body something out of frame." t Hakluyt, 6i8, 619. The English understood that there were fifty-one of their countrymen in captivity. " If you demand," says Marbeck, '* why there were no more delivered, I presuppose, and I think it true too, that at that time the residue were farther off, in some remote places of Spain bestowed, and so by that means not able to be at this time in readiness ; but yet near enough that there is some good order taken for them here- after to be redeemed, and sent over to England," 110 ENGLISH SEAMEN war be directed ; if it were thought good, Calais might be obtained in exchange for it ; at the worst, with the sea open to them, they could always obtain honourable terms. The lord admiral was of a different opinion, and he was supported by the naval commanders. The armament, they said, had been supplied with hardly two months' provisions, and the place could not be victualled in less than six from England and the Netherlands ; from Italy nothing could be looked for, that country being wholly subservient to the policy of the King of Spain ; nothing from Barbary in any reasonable time, for the Emperor of Morocco's abode was 100 miles inland, and nothing could be obtained from his dominions without his permission. They protested against lightly adventuring the reputation of the English arms. To this it was replied, that supplies might be expedited from home in much less time ; and that Don Christoval (son of the Prior D. Antonio), who was in the expedition, could go to Morocco, and by his influence procure them also from thence. The Dutch admiral offered to remain there with his fleet, and to land a month's provision for 2000 men ; if the English could contribute in the same proportion, the place would be victualled for three or four months. He urged this with a Dutchman's feeling, hoping to relieve his own country by making this the seat of war : that feeling was partaken by Vere ; and inquiry, alike at the instigation of those who agreed with them, and of the more numerous party whose only desire was to return with their booty, was made into the quantity of provisions in the town. It then appeared that no resources there could be taken into the account. In the wantonness of drunken havoc ^ oil jars had been broken, wine barrels staved, and * " Of what wealth this town should be," Dr. Marbeck says, " I am not able to resolve the asker. For I confess that, for my own part, I had not so much good luck as to be partaker so much as of one penny, or penny- worth. Howbeit, my ill fortune maketh that town never a whit the poorer. But, as it shall appear by the great pillage by the common soldiers, and some mariners too ; and by the goodly furniture that was defaced by the baser people, and thereby utterly lost and spoiled, as not worth the carrying away ; and by the over-great plenty of wine, oil, almonds, olives, raisins, spices, and other rich grocery wares, that by the intemperate disorder of some of the rasher sort were knocked out, and lay trampled underfoot in every highway, — it should appear that it was of some very mighty great wealth to the first owners ; though perchance not of any such great com- modity to the last subduers : for this I judge, that the better part was most ROBERT DEVEREUX 111 fruit and grain thrown into the streets and trodden under- foot. Still Essex* persisted in his opinion that they ought to keep their conquest; but he was overruled by the authority of his wiser colleagues, and the voice of all those who had enriched themselves with the spoil.f It was determined, therefore, to lay waste the island, raze the forts, and destroy the town as far as that could be done by fire ; " the fair cathedral church, and the religious houses only being spared and left unblemished ". Yet the studious respect which had been shown to the clergy and their edifices did not prevent the Spaniards from saying, that in sacred things the English had shown themselves heretics : they gave them, however, this commendation, that in other matters they had approved themselves stout soldiers, wise, and truly noble. They deemed it a miracle | that the enemy having won Cadiz, should neither attempt to hold it, nor make an attack upon any other place ; and their joy at seeing the expedition depart after its work of destruction was done, was in proportion to the danger which they had apprehended. At that time the Spaniards knew not how little the English treasury was able to bear the charge of a distant war ; and perhaps England was not better acquainted with the internal weakness of Spain, where the Moriscoes, though not long before sup- pressed, were still formidable by their numbers and by the remembrance of their intolerable wrongs ; and where the troops, when brought into the field, displayed none of the discipline and little of the courage which in other countries had deservedly obtained for them the highest reputation.§ They carried with them the two galleons which they had taken, some few of the wealthier prisoners, and forty hostages for the general ransom. The galleys which had been allowed riotously and intemperately spent and consumed ; a disorder, in my opinion, very much to be lamented, and if it could be by any good measure remedied, in my conceit it were a most honourable device " (Hakluyt, 615). * Camden says, and Lediaid unsuspiciously repeats, that Essex offered to stay with only 400 men, arM provisions for three months. This, in the first instance, must have been'%n error in the MS. or in the press; but to repeat it almost implies as little sense as Essex must have had if he did indeed make so absurd a proposal. Camden says (521), '• Being every man sufficiently enriched, their minds were on their own country, so as they would not grant him so much as his ship, nor victuals for a month or two ". t Peter Bor, iv., 233, 234. Triumphs 0/ Nassau, 193. X Strype, ccii. Letter from P. Ribadaneira, § Bleda, 754, 755. 112 ENGLISH SEAMEN to escape through the bridge of Zuazo were on the alert ; they harassed the rear of the fleet, and captured a Dutch vessel with horses and baggage on board, which being a heavy sailer lagged behind.* The question now was what next should be attempted ; for the lords-general had still the hope and intent of performing some farther great service before their return. But " such was the covetousness of the better sort who had enriched themselves, and such the fear of hunger in others who com- plained for want of victuals, that they could not willingly be drawn to any further action". Essex, however, with a party of English and most of the Hollanders, landed at Faro, at that time "a place of no wealth," and of no resistance. They burnt it, nevertheless, and spoiled the beautiful country thereabout. And they brought away the library which had belonged to Osorio, late bishop of the adjacent city of Sylves, whose Latinised name is still well known, and was then familiar to the English because of the letter which he had addressed to Queen Elizabeth, and his controversy with Haddon. Mon- son says that Faro was famous only for his library, and that many of the books were bestowed upon the newly erected one at Oxford. -|- There, therefore, the remains of this collec- tion are preserved ; but it is probable that those books which would now be the most valuable, were thought by the captors not worthy of preservation. They learned from the prisoners that the strength of the country was in Lagos, then the largest place in Algarve, and still the seat of Government ; it was represented as strong in itself, and well prepared for defence, most part of the gentry thereabout having gone thither "to make it good," expecting an attack. This news was acceptable to Essex, who preferred honour before wealth ; and having re-embarked his men, he proposed to proceed against it. But the lord admiral alleged that the place was strong, and contained nothing that could compensate for the probable loss in taking it ; that it belonged to the Portuguese, who were our friends at heart ; that the winning of it, after so eminent a place as Cadiz, could add no honour ; and that if it should be carried, yet it would be with the loss of his best troops and gentlemen, who would rather * Peter Bor, 234. Triumphs of Nassau, 194. t Monson, 171. ROBERT DEVEREUX US desire to die than receive the indignity of a repulse. Much against his will, Essex yielded to these reasons.* There was at this time a general complaint for want of victuals ; upon inquiry, however, it was found that there were seven weeks' provision on board, drink excepted ; and there would have been no difficulty in watering, commanding as their force was. The best service that could be thought of was to lie in wait for the Indian ships, this being the usual time of their return. Essex, therefore, when the fleet had doubled Cape St. Vincent, proposed that they should make for the Azores, "founding myself," he says, "upon these two reasons : first, that it was more certain to attend there at the land, where we were assured they must touch, than to seek them on the wide sea ; and next, that the advices sent out of Spain and Portugal since our being on the coast might meet them amongst the islands, and make them alter their usual course from thence, but could hardly find them beyond, and divert them from coming thither. Besides, the Spaniards after they saw us engaged at Cadiz, would never suspect or dream of our going to the islands." This was overruled. They proceeded till they came off the mouth of the Tagus : there they had been forbidden to enter by their instructions ; "and if it had been free for us to have gone," says Essex, " yet our seamen were made of the same stuff that Sir Francis Drake and his company were, when they lost the occasion of taking Lisbon from fear of passing by the castle of St. Julians". The opposition which the earl met with in his projects from the naval officers must have made him very sore, or he would not have cast this reflection upon as brave a man as ever carried an English ship into action. •]- Then he proposed to wait for the carracks, sending home the land forces, and all such ships as want of victuals, leaks, sickness, or anything else whatsoever, had made unfit to stay out at sea. The Lord Thomas Howard heartily agreed with him in thinking that this was the course which ought now to be taken, and they asked for twelve ships furnished out of the rest The lord admiral objected, and Raleigh joined in the opposition, alleging the scarcity of provisions, and the infection of his men. The Dutch, showing themselves as before ready for any enterprise, offered to stay. But the * Monson, 171. +Lediard, 338. 114 ENGLISH SEAMEN lord admiral refused to leave two of the queen's ships, and eight or ten merchantmen; and Lord Thomas was the only captain who of his own accord would have stayed. "The riches of Cadiz," says Monson, " kept them that had got much from attempting more, as if it had been pure want and not honour that would have enforced them to greater enterprises." Thus Essex's hopes were frustrated, to the grievous disappointment of the Hollanders, who made sure of these prizes, if they had either made for the islands, or kept cruising oiF the coast. In fact, the fleet safely arrived within a fortnight : it was sup- posed to be worth 7,000,000 ducats ; and a Spanish Jesuit considered its escape as miraculous, when it would have been such a scourge to all Christendom, if in that necessitous season it had fallen into the hands of the heretics.* The lord admiral and the other commanders were now for hastening homeward ; but Essex proposed that they should make for Coruna,-]- and thither, says he, "with cart-ropes I drew them ; for I both vowed and protested against their refusal, and parted company with them when they offered to hold on their course". A caravel, with its men apparelled in Spanish clothes, looked into that harbour, and into Ferrol, and ascertained that there were no ships in either. This being ascertained, they held their last council. Essex would have proceeded to Santander, Passages, St. Sebastians, "and the good ports all along the coast ; but my associate," he says, "absolutely refused to go farther, complaining of wants, and objected our being embayed, and I know not what, in which opinion Sir Walter Raleigh strengthened him ; and they were both desirous to take upon them the honour of breaking the design. And of landing at the Groyne, or attempting the town, they would not hear by any means." They were un- doubtedly right in not making an attack upon Coruna, where Drake and Norris had been repulsed, and where no advantage could have been obtained in any degree commensurate to the risk. Here, therefore, the fleet broke up ; the other commanders making the best of their way to England, while Essex tarried to bring home the galleons taken at Cadiz, and the fly-boat that carried the artillery. The Dutch squadron and a few small * Lediard, 338. Monson, 172. Peter Bor, 234. Strype, ccii. t He says, " from Lisbon to the Groyne (Coruna), there is no port to hold the king's or any other great shipping," — forgetting Vigo. ROBERT DEVEREUX 115 ships kept company with him ; and on the way he drew up, in no amicable temper, towards his colleague and Raleigh, a vindication* of himself against the objections which he fore- saw would be made to the conduct of the expedition. Before the armament returned a prayer of thanksgiving was set forth by authority. It was composed by Burleigh, and thanked the Lord of Hosts for having so favourably conducted a force which had been sent out, not for any other worldly respect, but only for the defence of the realm and people against the mighty preparations of the enemy, seeking their ruin. It praised the Lord for strengthening the governors and leaders of the same with counsel and resolution, and blessing them with notable victories both by sea and land ; whereby the insolence and pride of our enemies, which sought our conquest and subversion, had been daunted, repulsed, and abated, "Grant unto us," it said, "the grace with due thank- fulness to acknowledge Thy fatherly goodness extended upon us, by Thy singular favour showed to Thy servant and minister, our sovereign lady and queen. And for Thy holy name continue these Thy wonderful blessings upon us, to defend us from our enemies ; and bless us with Thy graceful hand, to the endless praise of Thy holy name, and to our lasting joy. And direct our armies by Thy providence, so as the noblemen, and all others serving in the same army and navy in their charge, may with much honour, triumph, and safety, return home to their countries, and to give Thee due thanks for Thy special favours marvellously showed unto them, in preserving of them all this summer time from all contagion and mortality, by sword or sickness ; notwithstanding their force and violence most manfully exercised to the vanquishing great numbers both by sea and land ; and to the destruction of their most mighty ships, that heretofore have attempted to invade this realm ; and of their forts and castles, and waste of their notable sub- stances of their churches, without hurting any person that did yield, or any women, or children, or religious persons, to whom all favour was showed that they did require." f War, in those days, was conducted in such a spirit, that for the troops not to have committed, and with the sanction of their leaders. * Lediard (i., 337, 339), has printed this from the original in the Cotton Library. t Strype, Appendix, No. cxciv. 116 ENGLISH SEAMEN any outrage upon humanity, was deemed a point of special honour to the commanders, and calling for an especial ex- pression of gratitude to the Almighty. It was regarded as one of the most remarkable circumstances of this successful expedition, that the forces returned in health ; so large a force never having been known to suffer so little from sickness before."^ The queen addressed a letter of thanks to the two lords-general, in language not less characteristic of herself than it must have been grateful to the soldiers and sailors and the English nation. " If my pen," says Elizabeth, " had as many tongues as the flock of its owner had feathers, they could scarce express the laud that my soul yieldeth to the Highest for the great victory which His graceful hand hath given us ; and that you, as His instruments, have so admirably, in so few hours, with such valour, order, and resolution, per- formed so great an action, of which sort, I suppose, has not been seen a fellow. You have made me famous, dreadful, and renowned, not more for your victory than for your courage ; nor more for either than for such plentiful liquor of mercy, which may well match the better of the two. You have so pleased my mind therewith, as if I had a great treasure I would leave it for it. Never was there heard in so few days so great a gain obtained ; which, though I do attribute most to the forerunners, yet I charge you let the army know, both of sea and land, that I care not so much for being queen, as that I am the sovereign of such subjects that blast my fame with their worth. Their queen wisheth not more days to breathe than while such people may flourish, and desires to end before any disaster or dishonour fall on such a nation. This tell them from her whose thoughts and words never disagreed ; and yield them such due praise, as paper cannot utter, but my heart while it lasteth shall keep from oblivion. Among all Divine blessings I count it not the least, that your healths nor your harms may slack your safe return : for which whoso hath prayed most hath never gained a strawbreadth of me." f The queen addressed a letter of thanks also to the Dutch admiral, wherein she particularly acknowledged the honour- able and faithful friendship he had shown to her cousin the Earl of Essex, in tarrying by him when he was separated by * Monson. f Lediard, 338. ROBERT DEVEREUX 117 night from the fleet, and left without all assistance. " The Dutch commander," she said, "by convoying him to Plymouth had pre- vented a misfortune which, if it had fallen on one of the generals of the expedition, would have cast a shade over the victory."* Essex hastened to London on his arrival, and is said to have proposed that an immediate attempt should be made upon Calais. The opportunity was favourable for recovering a place which we had so long possessed that in public opinion it was still regarded as part of the ancient patrimony of England. But, according to Monson,-|- " the King of France withstood it, thinking with more ease to regain it from the Spaniards that were his enemies, than from us who were his friends". But such an enterprise would at that time have been as little consonant with the policy of the English Govern- ment as of the French. Elizabeth had engaged that the troops which had been withdrawn from the Low Countries for this service should be remanded thither as soon as it was accom- plished ; and, of the 3000 which remained, half were pressingly required for Ireland. The results of the voyage were thus summed up by Essex : — " For matter of glory, the English had not waited for the King of Spain, the most powerful monarch in the world, when he threatened a formidable war against England, but defied him in his own ground ; they defeated a fleet of his completely equipped, and in it the largest of his ships ; they no sooner saw the strongest fortified city in that part of Spain than they conquered it, and they had remained thirteen days in the enemy's country. For profit, they had brought home two galleons, wherewith to strengthen the English navy, and about one hundred great pieces of brass ordnance, as well as other spoils ; and the men had returned flushed with money and courage for another ex- pedition. For damage done to the Spaniard, he had lost thirteen of his best ships for service, forty Indian merchant ships, and four others ; great quantity of warlike stores both for sea and land, and of provisions ; so that it seemed im- possible for him soon to set forth another fleet for service. He had also lost all opportunity of sending any merchandise that year to Mexico, or receiving any from thence ; and the English (which was of no small moment) had learnt how easily the sea-towns of Spain might be taken." | * Peter Bor, 235. f Lediard, 672. :J: Camden, 523. 118 ENGLISH SEAMEN But it was presently found that the advantage to the Eng- lish Government was in small proportion to the injury which had been inflicted upon the Spaniards. An assured hope of great profit and gain had been held out by the lord admiral to the queen, upon which hope she had very hardly been drawn to disburse about 50,000/. ; and when she was now called upon for the wages of the soldiers and seamen, the answer of the council was, that if she should now be driven to farther expenses, she should be greatly deceived in her expectation, and in the assurances which the lord admiral had made her, without which she would never have yielded to the voyage. "You must give us leave to remember you," said they to the lord admiral, "like as Her Majesty hath objected it here to the Earl of Essex, that when that great reckoning was suspected to prove burdensome, you both made so light of any such suspicion, as you in a manner warranted the defraying of all such reckonings. And, therefore, as Her Majesty had objected this to the Earl of Essex, so are we commanded to do to you, — that, if good search be made, it will be found that both the captains, masters, and officers of all the ships, have pillage enough to bear each ship's charge, which, if it be thus, there is no reason the queen should give them wages, and suffer them to carry such pillage too, beyond all reason and order. And, therefore, it is Her Majesty's pleasure, that upon good search and view thereof, it be con- sidered which way will be most profitable for the queen, either to pay them, or take* that which is so indirectly embezzled by them : wherein Her Majesty meaneth not any such trash and petty matters as garments and other things fit for soldiers and mariners in like cases, but gross commodities, wares, and other merchandise, of which money may be made toward the common charge." Sixty of the brass guns had been given to the Hollanders ; this the council said Her Majesty thinks very much, considering, for ought she hears, that is the best reckoning she must look for toward her so insupportable charge. •[• The queen was displeased that Essex's proposal to go in quest of the carracks had been overruled, this having been " one of the principalest things to be performed in the end of the voyage ". " And for the not tarrying sail for them," said * Query, " Let them take ? " f Lediard, 336, 343, 345. I ROBERT DEVEREUX 119 the council, " Her Majesty remains fully unsatisfied, neither will almost hear any contrary argument ; especially because she thinks that amongst so many ships returned victualled for so long time, two at the least of Her Majesty's ships and some half-score others, might have been victualled well enough out of the remains. Although it will be said that so few could hardly serve the turn, yet Her Majesty commandeth us to write that it was strange if they should not serve to gather up some of them, considering how they return, scattered and weak, homeward always." * In England it was the Government alone that was dis- appointed ; the nation seemed to think that the glory which had been gained was well worth the cost. But in the Low Countries, a more sinister view of the expedition was taken by that party which always regarded the English with dislike and distrust. They complained that the Hollanders had been treated with insolence and injustice at the capture of Cadiz, the English, who kept watch at the gates, having violently despoiled them of their booty. This probably was an exag- gerated representation of a few cases, for which justice would have been done upon the spot had they been made known to the English generals : and it appears indeed that some of the Hollanders returned with a good share of spoils, the whole of which was seized by the admiralty, that it might be publicly sold, and the produce distributed according to the rules of their service. The cost of the armament of the States had been 500,000 florins ; but it was now complained that this was far from being all the cost to the people, for a large part of the destruction which had been committed at Cadiz fell upon the Dutch themselves ; they had their factors at Cadiz, their goods in that city, their ships in the harbour, and more than 300,000 florins' worth of Dutch property had been burnt, wasted, or carried off in the sack. There were men who hated England enough to report, and perhaps to believe, that the object of the English Government in this expedition had been to make the Dutch so odious in Spain, that they should no longer be permitted or able to trade thither, and Holland would by the loss of that trade be reduced to poverty. Whatever effect these villainous representations may have had in fostering that animosity which some of the Dutch * Lediard, 344. 120 ENGLISH SEAMEN manifested against their allies, and which the conduct of a fierce soldiery was but too likely sometimes to provoke, the States saw that there had been no just cause of complaint for anything that had occurred during the voyage ; and giving their admiral an authenticated copy of his letter of thanks from the queen, they deposited the original in their archives.* The Spaniards have been ever more active in repairing their disasters than in endeavouring to avert them. They recovered good part of the guns which had been sunk with their ships, repaired their fleet at Lisbon, embargoed all foreign vessels in their ports, brought together others from all parts, and collected an armada at Ferrol. Many Irish fugitives embarked in it. These preparations were made with such celerity and secrecy that the first certain news which the English Government had of their having put to sea-|- told also of their having sustained such loss and damage in a tempest, that the purport of their expedition was entirely frustrated, more than forty ships being lost. It was thought necessary, nevertheless, to strengthen the south coast with new works, and store them for defence. | Essex's favour with the queen had not been diminished by his absence ; and though Elizabeth was too sagacious to agree with him that Cadiz ought to have been maintained, she cer- * Peter Bor, 234, 235. t Mr. Secretary Lake writes to Sir Robert Sydney (4th Nov.), *• We have been much awakened with the alarms of the enemy's preparations, and partly as I hear from you, the like out of France, and every day from such shipping as cometh from the seas. The last is very pregnant, that the fleet was met coming from Lisbon to the Groyne, and that there they are assembled, eighty sail and upwards. Our judgments here are divided in discoursing thereof, the ground chiefly : both sides applying all things to that which is most suitable to particular ends, but yet not without good colour of reason. On the one side, it seemeth improbable that so much shipping can suddenly be ready with provision to attempt any great matter ; the season of the year unfit for our seas, subject to change of weather : on the other, is alleged the continual advertisements from divers parts ; the nature of the enemy, so lately stung with disgrace, and longing for revenge ; the mightiness of his means. And these arguments are rife in each man's mouth, as he is affected to either party ; and the worst is, that it falleth out into some effects, stopping or furthering of resolutions necessary ; which indifferent judgments, that look with even eye to the chiefest aim, cannot but mislike, though vulgarly it doth not appear " (Sydney Papers, i., 5). JFerreras, 1596, § 15. Camden, 524. The places specified are Sands- fort, Portland, Hurst, Southsea, Calshot, St. Andrews, and St. Maudits. ROBERT DEVEREUX 121 tainly thought that his opinion concerning the subsequent employment of the fleet should have been followed. But he presumed too much upon her favour, and exposed himself thereby to some deserved mortification. He opposed the appointment of Sir Francis Vere to the command of the Briel, though his eminent services in the Low Countries, and the reputation which he enjoyed there, rendered him the fittest of all men for that post. Essex had recommended others for it, and did not dissemble his discontent that his recommendations should have been disregarded. He had also recommended Sir Thomas Bodley for the office of secretary of state, upon the ground of his conversance with the affairs of the Low Countries, and his great knowledge and his wisdom. His influence was such, and Bodley was so far worthy of the character thus given him, that he would have been appointed to the office jointly with Sir Robert Cecil, if Essex had not so invidiously and unjustly attempted to depreciate Cecil, that the queen manifested her displeasure ; and Cecil, who was appointed sole secretary, in consequence became his enemy, not without just cause.* The queen also was displeased at his conduct, and made some attempt *'to pull down his great heart," saying, "he held it from the mother's side ".-f- Still, however, the kind- ness with which she really regarded him was such, that the most ambitious of his enemies deemed it advisable to court a reconciliation, and avail themselves of his favour. The advances which Cecil himself made "took not that success which was looked for," but Raleigh intermediated ; and Essex, weary of the uneasy position in which he found himself, listened not unwillingly \ to proposals which were to promote * Camden, 525. •\ Sydney Papers, ii., 19, 22, 24. X The Sydney Papers (ii., 42), calls this "a treaty of peace," confirmed between Cecil, Essex, and Raleigh, after dining together, and being all three " very private for two hours ". " It is true that Sir Walter Raleigh hath taken upon him to provide victuals for three months for 6000 men, at the allowance of nine pence a man per diem. There is imprested unto him 3000/. a week for six weeks ; he shall have Bridewell, Winchester House, and Durham House, to be the magazines for the victuals. He protests he shall be a loser by it ; but few are of that opinion besides him- self. Mr. Secretary's turn is next for the chancellorship of the duchy ; he will surely have it, for there will be no opposition, but all assistance and furtherance given unto him." In a subsequent letter (55), where the victualling of the land forces by 122 ENGLISH SEAMEN the public good, and the interest of both parties. Raleigh had been suspended from his post of captain of the guard, and hoped to be reinstated by Cecil's means, if Essex were not opposed to him ; both were desirous that an expedition against the Spaniards should be set forth, and their united interests were required for this object. For though it was urged upon the queen as a measure necessary for her safety, she was opposed to it : at that time there appeared no such danger as to call for preventive hostilities, and her principle was not to make war, but to prepare for defence. When, however, it was ascertained that the Spaniard, who was never cast down by disasters, but always indefatigable in repairing them, had, with the wreck of his own fleet, and all the ships that he could hire in all quarters, fitted out another armament, for a new attempt upon Ireland, she then, with her wonted spirit, determined to prevent the attack. At first ten ships of the navy royal were made ready, and as many Hollanders ; but as greater objects than those at first intended were con- templated, the armament was increased to 120 sail; of which seventeen were queen's ships, forty-three smaller men-of- war, and the rest victuallers. They were divided into three squadrons : one under Essex, who had the chief and un- divided command ; one under Lord Thomas Howard ; and the third under Raleigh.* Lord Mountjoy commanded the land forces, consisting of 5000 men raised for the occasion, and 1000 old soldiers whom Sir Francis Vere brought from the Low Countries. Vere was appointed marshal. Sir George Carew lieutenant of the ordnance, and Sir Christopher Blunt serjeant-major, or chief colonel. Raleigh was restored to his post as captain of the guard, with Essex's "liking and furtherance," the earl's mind, it is said, " being full, and only carried away with the business he hath in his head, of over- coming the enemy ".f He himself was made master of the ordnance. His whole heart | was in this expedition. He was resolved, Raleigh is mentioned, the writer says, '•! hear it is very well done, and that he hath let the earl have much for his private provision. They are grown exceeding great ; and Essex often goes to Cecil's house, very private, where they meet." * Camden, 530. t Sydney Papers, 37. X " The earl is so busy that a man can have no time to speak with him to any purpose. I will attend, and spy out some time to put him in mind ROBERT DEVEREUX J23 he said, either to destroy that Spanish fleet which threatened England, or sacrifice his life in his country's service. It was given out that the force was intended for Ireland ; but though that was the common report, it could not have been believed by the numerous volunteers of better note and quality, who embarked in it with their feathers waving, and richly habited in gaudy clothes ; a vanity, says Camden, peculiar to the Eng- lish when they go to the wars.* No man went willingly to the barbarous Irish wars. The Earls of Rutland and South- ampton, and Lords Grey, Cromwell, and Rich, were among the adventurers. Their instructions were to make for Ferrol and Coruna, there to surprise the Spanish armament in harbour ; then to take and keep the island of Tercera, and endeavour to intercept the homeward-bound Indian fleet. They sailed from Plymouth on Sunday, 10th July. Next evening they " felt a contrary wind, and overblowing ". This increased : the fleet was dispersed, and the scattered ships put back each where it could ; Raleigh to Plymouth on the 18th, Essex to Falmouth on the 20th.f The ships suffered severely, but none appear to have foundered. One knight (Sir Richard Ruddale) died of sea-sickness ; and the storm "killed the hearts" of many gentlemen volunteers, who, as soon as they got to shore, took leave of the expedition.! of doing something for you before he go ; and seeing he suffers others to advance their friends, methinks he should do the like for you. But it is not your case only, but all those that truly love him, who, indeed, are in a mutiny against these late courses he holds ; but he answers them all with silence. ' He is so full of this business now in hand, that everybody,' said Sir Gilly Merick unto me, ' must have patience till his return, and then he will be able to do for his friends.' ' As much as he did,' said I, ' when he came last home ' " (to Sir Robert Sydney, Sydney Papers, 55). * " Arthur Champernon goeth in a little bark of his own this journey, as neat as himself; and the ship, for burthen, as little as he for a man." {Sydney Papers, 58). f Monson says (303), " We may blame the unadvisedness of my Lord of Essex, in keeping the sea with a contrary wind, foul weather, and a press sail, till his fleet were scattered, when in three hours he might have har- boured in Falmouth, and avoided the rigour of the storm ". t In a letter of the 26th, Cecil writes to Essex, '• Till Friday, in the morning, we heard nothing of your safe arrival ; of which, to tell you truth, till I was well advertised, I took little pleasure to think of answer- ing the Remaine, but wished the action dissolved ; and knew, if you had Eerished, it had been vanity to have dreamed any farther of aught else ut passion here and confusion there " (Ellis's Original Letters, iii., 42). Cecil's opinion of Raleigh appears in his letter ; and his knowledge also 124 ENGLISH SEAMEN Essex and Raleigh posted to London after this mishap, leaving Mountjoy, Howard, and Vere at Plymouth. The soldiers were lodged in the adjacent villages, taking with them provisions from the fleet. Some of the ships had reached the Spanish coast, and shown themselves off Ferrol : the Spaniards had not put to sea against them, because of the weather ; but having this intimation that an enemy's expedition had been sent out, they had time to prepare against it.* A whole month the winds continued so contrary, that when the fleet had been refitted they could not get out of harbour. By this time their provisions were far spent ; and, strange as it must now seem, they could only be supplied from the eastern parts of England, and that in no short time. It became necessary, therefore, to disband the new levies, and retain only the thousand old soldiers. The land force being thus greatly diminished, it was the general opinion that no attempt should be hazarded upon Coruna or Ferrol, but that they should make at once for the islands, and Vere objected even to this ; he said it would neither be for the queen's profit nor honour; with so diminished an armament nothing could be done that would satisfy men's expectations, and meantime the Spaniards might invade England while the best commanders and part of the queen's army were absent. Vere's well-established character enabled him to deliver such an opinion without fear of reproach, but Essex abated nothing of his haughty hopes.f Though disabled from landing in Galicia and beat- that Essex partook the same feeling of ill-will, notwithstanding their tripartite alliance. He says, "And for good Mr. Raleigh, who wonders at his own diligence, because diligence and he are not familiars, it is true that on Wednesday night, I being at Greenwich, and the queen at Mr. Walsingham's, his letter found me, which I imparted on Thursday as soon as the queen was ready unto her ; and do confess that, in expecta- tion to hear of you, we did defer answer to you until Friday, of which day I trust divers despatches are with you long before this time. Thus do you see that a man whose fortune scants him of means to do you ser- vice, will not bear coolly to be accused of dulness, especially by your rere-admiral, who making haste but once in a year to write a letter in port, gave date from Weymouth to his last despatch, which, by the cir- cumstances, I knew was written from Plymouth " (Ellis's Original Letters, iii., 42). * Sydney Papers, 57-59. Camden, 530. t Camden says, that "out of his high magnanimity and courage and spirit, he propounded many and great matters he would do if he might be permitted, with one half the fleet and army, to go to I know not what place" (531). ROBERT DEVEREUX 125 ing the land forces there, he offered to send fireships into Ferrol, and to second them with the St. Matthew and St. Andrew, and some large fly-boats and merchantmen, leaving all the queen's own English-built ships at the mouth of the harbour to secure his retreat. Thus he should hazard only the two great carracks which he had taken at Cadiz, for the chance of defeating the enemy's whole navy. Leave was given him to make the attempt ; but he was positively for- bidden to go himself with these carracks, or to hazard any other ships.* On the 17th of August they put to sea. A storm again scattered them before they got sight of the Spanish coast: the St. Matthefv "having spent her cross-yards and main- mast," struck upon a rock ; but by the great exertion of her commander. Sir George Carew, the crew were prevented from abandoning her, and both men and ship were saved. The St. Andrew was missing when the remainder of the fleet reas- sembled. They were censured for vain ostentation in sailing now within view of the shore, as if the detriment which former commanders had suffered in consequence of a like imprudence had been no warning to them ; but it seems rather that the attempt appeared impracticable even to Essex himself, when neither carrack could be employed in it ; and after hovering for some time off the coast in hope of enticing the Spanish fleet out, it was determined to make for the Azores. Every captain received his directions to steer his course into lat. 36°, and thence to spread themselves north and south, that being the height in which the Spaniards usually sailed from the Indies.-]- On the second night after this resolution had been taken, Essex "brought himself upon the lee" to stop a leak in his ship; and "through this unadvised working," Raleigh and some other vessels who were too far ahead to perceive it at such a time, parted company from the fleet. The next day Raleigh fell in with a pinnace, which told him that the Armada, instead of being at Ferrol and Coruna, was gone to the islands to protect the Indian fleet. The pinnace with this advice, which proved to be false, was sent to look for Essex ; he upon receiving it altered his plans accordingly, made sail for the islands, and despatched some small vessels to Raleigh, order- * Lediard, 355. f Monson, 173. 126 ENGLISH SEAMEN ing him to repair to Flores. Upon arriving there it was found that the Armada was neither there nor expected to come. Raleigh had not arrived, who, Essex thought, should have been there before him ; and Essex hastily giving ear to some of his own hangers-on, was persuaded that his newly reconciled enemy had purposely separated from the fleet, and had de- coyed a number of ships and tenders to follow him ; and under this persuasion he despatched a complaint against him to England. The first hour he anchored he called a council, and Monson advised him as soon as he watered to run west, and spread his ships north and south, as far as the east wind which then blew would carry them ; for if the Indian fleet, he said, came home that year, they could not be above 200 leagues west of that island, and whenever the wind should chop up westerly, he bearing a slack sail, they would in a few days overtake him. Essex seemed willing to follow this advice ; but he was diverted from it by some of those persons who " coming principally from land service, found themselves tired by the tediousness of the sea".* By the time the ships had watered and refreshed Raleigh arrived. Essex then, witli that generosity which it is a sin to fail in, and which yet is so seldom found that it is accounted a virtue whenever it is displayed, acknowledged his fault, and promised ample amends. "He seemed," says Raleigh's captain. Sir Arthur Gorges, "to be the joyfullest man living for our arrival," acquainted Sir Walter with "the many conjectures and surmises that had been vented of his absence, and withal named to him some of those who had taxed him secretly with strange reports, yet pretended to love him, which he protested he never believed, but thereby the better observed their cankered dispositions. For though the earl had many doubts and jealousies buzzed into his ears against Sir Walter, yet," says Gorges, "I have often observed that both in his greatest actions of service and at the times of his cheerful recreations, he would ever accept of his counsel and company before many others who thought themselves more in his favour." -|- At this time the English were much cast down. They had met divers Englishmen who came from the Indies and could give no assurance of the Indian fleet, nor could they obtain any information concerning it on shore, and this made them * Monson, 175. f Purchas, vol. iv. ROBERT DEVEREUX 127 half in despair.* A council of war was held, and according to Sir Arthur Gorges it was resolved that Fayal should be attacked by Essex and Raleigh ; Graciosa by Howard and Vere ; St. Michael's by Mountjoy and Blunt ; Pico by the Dutch squadron ; and last of all Tercera by their united force. Raleigh was taking in wood and water when he re- ceived the earl's orders to follow him to Fayal. He obeyed with all alacrity, but missed him on the way, and when he arrived at Fayal Essex was not there. Two days elapsed, and no appearance of the general's squadron ; the enemy mean- time were making all possible preparation for defence ; and Raleigh, than whom no man had studied more thoughtfully the art of war, knew well how much was lost in losing time. A council was held, and he proposed landing. "There were some," says Raleigh, "who advised me not to undertake it, and I hearkened unto them somewhat longer than was re- quisite, especially when they desired me to reserve the title of such an exploit, though it were not great, for a greater person." Sir Gilly Merrick was the man who urged with most warmth that they should wait for the general. The majority agreed with Raleigh in opinion ; they agreed, how- ever, to wait another day ; that day also elapsed ; and when Essex's partisans, or creatures, as they might without injustice be called, found it no longer fitting to press for delay in deference to him, they began to tell Raleigh of difficulties. "Then," says he, "I gave them to understand that it was more difficult to defend a coast than to invade it ; " and from a sense of pride he determined upon making the attempt, not in the easiest, but in the most daring way.j- He had persuaded himself that in the present case it was the best policy to act so. "The truth is," he says, "I could have landed my men with more ease, yea, without finding any resistance, if I would have rowed to another place ; yea, even there where I landed, if I would have taken more com- pany to help me. But without fearing any imputation of rashness, I may say that I had more regard of reputation in that business than of safety. For I thought it to belong unto the honour of our prince and nation, that a few islanders should not think any advantage great enough against a fleet set forth by Queen Elizabeth ; and further, I was unwilling • Monson, 173. f History of the World, 5, i, g 9, 307. 128 ENGLISH SEAMEN that some Low Country captains, and others not of my own squadron, whose assistance I had refused, should please them- selves with a sweet conceit (though it would have been short, when I had landed in some other place), that for want of their help I was driven to turn tail. Therefore I took with me none but men assured, commanders of mine own squadron, with some of their followers, and a few other gentlemen, voluntaries, whom I could not refuse ; as Sir William Brooke, Sir William Harvey, Sir Arthur Gorges, Sir John Scot, Sir Thomas Ridge way. Sir Henry Thinne, Sir Charles Morgan, Sir Walter Chute, Marcellus Throckmorton, Captain Lawrence Keymis, Captain William Morgan, and others, such as well understood themselves and the enemy." * This passage alone might show, was there no other proof, what heartburnings there were among the commanders and officers in this arma- ment, notwithstanding the formal -j- reconciliation that had taken place. It required English courage to effect a landing at such a spot, in the face of a well-prepared enemy ; and our seamen had not then acquired that never-failing confidence which, from the days of Drake and Raleigh, they have possessed as their assured and indefeasible inheritance. The landing-place was protected first by a ledge of rocks, extending about forty paces in length into the sea, and afterwards trenched and flanked with earth and stones, the entrance being by a narrow way between two walls. These works were manned with be- tween 500 and 600 men. The landing party consisted of 260. Raleigh stationed some pinnaces before him, as close along the shore as they could lie, to keep up a fire of ordnance upon the trenches, while the boats made, fast as oars could ply, to the landing-place. But the islanders shot so fast upon the boats, and with such well-directed aim, that not the men alone, but leaders of tried courage, betrayed symptoms of dis- may ; nor were Raleigh's loud and sharp exhortations sufficient for rousing them to a sense of the disgrace as well as increased * History of the World, 5, i, § 9, 307. t While some of the land forces were at Weymouth, Sir Francis Vera says, " The general called myself and Sir Walter Raleigh before him, and for that he thought there remained some grudge of the last year's falling out, would needs have us shake hands ; which we did both the willinglier because there had nothing passed betwixt us that might blemish reputa- tion". ROBERT DEVEREUX 129 danger which they were bringing upon themselves, till he ordered the watermen to row his own barge full upon the rocks, and called upon as many as were not afraid to follow him. Then, indeed, they who before were quailing recollected themselves, and pressed forward.* They ran upon the rocks, clambered over them, waded through the water, reached the narrow entrance in spite of the enemy's fire, and pushed on to the assault with such resolution, that the islanders, after a short resistance, abandoned their works and fled.-]- " I could have done this," says Raleigh, "with less danger; but the reasons before alleged, together with other reasons well known to some of the gentlemen above named, though more private than to be here laid down, made me rather follow the way of bravery, and take the shorter course, having it still in mine own power to fall off when I should think it meet. It is easily said that the enemy was more than a coward, (which yet was more than we knew) ; neither will I magnify such a small piece of service by seeking to prove him better, whom, had I thought equal to mine followers, I would otherwise have dealt with." | A weightier motive with common minds than the desire of glory had made the men desirous that the attack should be no longer delayed ; for they knew that while the enemy's troops were fortifying themselves, the inhabitants were carrying away their effects. They thought all danger was past when they had won good footing ; but more loss was sustained on the march to the town than in the landing, and those who hastened after Raleigh that they might not lose their part in the spoil, were attacked at vantage by the Spaniards, and driven to forsake the pace of a man-of-war, and betake themselves to a hasty trot.§ Less plunder was found than had been expected ; the garrison retired into the fort, and on the morrow Essex arrived. It was represented by his creatures that Raleigh had hastened the attack for no other reason than that he might prevent him, and gain the honour for himself. •Campbell, i., 117. + " As for the working of the sea, the steepness of the cliffs, and other troubles that were not new to us, we overcame them well enough ; and these notwithstanding, made five or six companies of the enemy that sought to impeach our landing, abandon the wall whereon their musket- eers lay on the rest for us, and won the place of them without any great loss " (History of the World, 307). X History of the World, 307. § Ibid. 9 ISO ENGLISH SEAMEN Sir Gilly Merrick is named as foremost in these malicious insinuations ; some urged the commander to bring Raleigh before a council of war, and cashier him for having acted with- out orders in so important an affair ; others went further, and advised that he should be put to death, observing that Essex might never again have so fair an opportunity of removing an adversary out of his way. '^The act," says Monson,* '^was held such an indignity to my lord, and urged with such vehemence by those who hated Raleigh, that if the earl (though naturally kind and flexible) had not feared how it would have been taken in England, I think Sir Walter had smarted for it." But they who thought thus did not give Essex credit for the magnanimity which he possessed ; " for ''being pressed by one, whose name," says Sir Henry Wotton,-j- "I need not remember, that at the least he would put him upon a martial-court ; he let fall a noble word on that occa- sion, and replied, ^That I would do if he were my friend' ". Sydney, Bret, Berry, and others who accompanied Raleigh, were cashiered and committed to custody. Raleigh was sent fbr before the council and " entertained with sour looks by all men " ; and Essex severely reprimanded him for a breach of discipline, and acting contrary to what had been established under pain of death. Sir Walter replied, that the captains, pilots, and others under command, were bound by that order, but not the three chief generals, of whom he was one ; that he had waited a long while for the arrival, and would have waited longer, if the enemy had not refused to let him take in water ; and of this he was so greatly in want that it was necessary for him to land and take it by force. Howard mediated, and persuaded Raleigh to make some apology, and thereupon the officers were released and restored : " for Essex," says Camden, "being a man of a mild nature in respect of taking or forgetting offences, passed by these growing en- mities and discontents for the commonwealth's sake ; yet on both sides they were rather laid asleep than removed " .\ Meantime the garrison abandoned the fort, conscious that if they had been taken there they might expect as little mercy as they deserved ; for the bodies of an English gentle- man and of a Fleming, taken probably at the landing, were found with their throats cut. After this the island was in * P. 173. t R^liquicF, 180, X Camden, 533. ROBERT DEVEREUX 131 part pillaged, the ordnance from the forts carried on board, and the town burnt to the ground. The fleet then went to Graciosa : the inhabitants submitted without resistance, and supplied the wants of the ships as far as they could ; "yet with humble entreaty to forbear landing, especially because they understood there was a squadron of Hollanders, who did not use to forbear cruelty wherever they came".* Essex assured them that no injury should be offered them, and sent some persons of authority ashore to see that his orders in this respect were observed. These persons advertised him, late in the evening, that they could descry from the shore four sail, one of which being greater than the rest, seemed to be a carrack. Rejoiced at this, he ordered Monson in the Rain- bow f to steer away south that night ; and if he should fall in with any fleet, to follow it, carrying lights, or firing guns, or making any other sign that he could ; if he met with none, he was to direct his course next day to St. Michael's ; but twelve ships should be sent after him that night. Monson, by the pinnace that brought him these orders, besought the earl, above all things, to despatch a squadron to Angra Road at Tercera, for it was certain, he said, that if the ships which had been seen were Spaniards, thither they would resort. | While Essex was ordering his squadron, a small barque came in, and assured him that the ships which had been seen were some of his own : this made him countermand his orders ; but Monson was gone too far to be recalled. That officer fell in, about midnight, with a fleet of twenty sail : it happened that precisely that number were missing from the English fleet. "Here he was in a dilemma and great perplexity with him- self ; for, in making signs as he was directed, if the ships proved English, it was ridiculous, and he should be exposed to scorn ; and to respite it till morning, were as dangerous if they were the Indian fleet, for then Essex might be out of view, or of * Monson, 173. t It was while the fleet were at Flores that Taylor, the Water Poet, who was serving on board the Rainbow, being one of a small party that landed, •' stowed away twelve loaves in his breeches and sleeves, with one of which, out of the lower pantry, he relieved a hungry gentleman of the party. Two and twenty years afterwards, when the merry old Water Poet was on his penniless pilgrimage, that gentleman, then the noble knight Sir Henry Witherington, requited him at Newcastle with a bay mare for that loaf" (Taylor's Works, 131, 139). X Monson, 174. 132 ENGLISH SEAMEN the hearing of his ordnance." He resolved, therefore, rather to put his person than his ship in peril ; and, ordering his master to keep the weather-gage of the fleet, whatever might become of him, got into his boat, rowed up to this fleet, hailed them, and demanded whence they were. Of Seville, they answered, and returned the question. He replied, of Eng- land ; that his ship was a galleon of the queen's, single and alone, and much honour they might get by taking her if they could, — his drift being to entice them into the wake of the English fleet. They were too wary to be so deceived; and returning him some shot, and some ill language, continued their course to Tercera. He, when he got on board his ship, made signs and light, and fired his guns in vain ; for Essex, having changed his intended course, was standing that night for St. Michael's, passing by the north side of Tercera, which was a farther way than if he had gone by Angra, where he would have found the Indian fleet.* At daylight, when Monson hoped to have seen the twelve ships that were to have followed him, he saw the Spanish fleet some two miles ahead, a galleon astern, and betwixt these a pinnace. The galleon put forth her flags, by which she was known to be the Garland, a queen's ship, the Earl of Southampton ; the pinnace was a Spaniard, which had mis- taken the two English vessels for some of her companions, and was pursued and sunk by a shot from the Garland. While Southampton's men were rifling the pinnace before she went down, Vere and Sir William Brooke hove in sight in the Mary Rose, and the Dreadnought; and the four English ships then joined in pursuit of the Spanish fleet. They being now far ahead, and having little way to sail, recovered the road of Tercera ; thither they were followed, and Monson led the way into the harbour. He found " sharp resistance from the castle there ; but yet so battered the ships, that he might see the masts of some shot by the board, and the men quit the ships ; so that there wanted nothing but a gale of wind to enable him to cut the cables of their hawsers and bring them oif ". He sent to his companions, desiring that they should attempt this. Vere objected, and wished rather that he would come off and consult with them ; and though Monson sent word; that if he quitted the harbour then, the Spaniards would * Monson, 174. ROBERT DEVEREUX 133 tow near the castle, and as night drew on, the wind would freshen and come more off the land, Vere's opinion prevailed ; and in the morning, as Monson had foreseen, the English found themselves above a league from the road. Backward- ness could not be imputed to a man of Vere's known intre- pidity ; but it was felt by old seamen,* that his want of experience in the sea-service had occasioned his error of judgment on this occasion. f Raleigh's example, however, might make this council cautious how they ventured upon any considerable enter- prise in the general's absence. They resolved, therefore, to send advices to him, desiring his presence with them, to see if there was any possibility to attempt the shipping, or to surprise the island, and so possess the treasure. Essex was on the point of making a descent upon St. Michael's, when these despatches reached him. Giving up that intention, he " presently cast about for Tercera," and met on the way with the only fortunate accident in the expedition; for he fell in with and captured three ships that had sailed from the Havannah a day after the fleet ; and these prizes " almost countervailed the expenses of the whole voyage ".J Upon his arrival, " there was a consultation how the enemy's ships might be fetched off or destroyed as they lay". Some of the soldiers thought that both the ships and the town might be easily taken ; and in this opinion Essex concurred : the seamen, with one consent, agreed in the impossibility of it. There * Camden says that Southampton attempted, with great boats, to enter the haven by night, and to cut the cables of the nearest ships, that they might be forced to sea by the winds blowing from the lands ; but the Spaniards keeping diligent watch, they lost their labour (p. 533). t " We may say," says Monson, " and that truly, there was never that possibility to have undone the state of Spain as now ; for every royal of plate we had taken in this fleet had been two to them, by our converting it by war upon them. . . . None of the captains could be blamed in this business ; all is to be attributed to the want of experience in my Lord (Essex), and his flexible nature to be overruled. . . . Certain it is, if he had followed the advice given him at Flores, within less than forty hours he had made the queen owner of that fleet. For, by the pilot's card, which was taken in the pinnace, the Spanish fleet was but fifty leagues in traverse with that eastern wind when my lord was at Flores ; which made my lord wish, the first time Sir William Monson repaired to him after the escape of the fleet, that he had lost his hand, so he had been ruled by him " (p. 175). X Monson, 175. 134 ENGLISH SEAMEN was not only the difficulty of the landing to be considered, but that the strength of the island was reinforced with 1400 or 1500 soldiers from the fleet, and that their own stores were not enough for them to undertake a siege."* The general, therefore, went with Mountjoy and a few others to take a nearer view ; and when it was seen that the ships were drawn up under the forts ; that the haven was well secured by works, natural situation, and a strong garrison ; that great guns were everywhere mounted ; and that owing to a contrary wind their wildfire balls could do them no service, they who before had been the forwardest for the adventure admitted that it was impracticable. •[■ Thus disappointed in the great object of the expedition, he resumed his intention of landing on St. Michael's, sailed thither accordingly, and anchored before its chief city, Ponta Delgada. That place, like most Portuguese and Spanish towns, pre- sented at a distance an appearance of beauty and grandeur, to which there is nothing in the interior that corresponds. The sight ''made the soldiers eager for the pillage thereof". Essex himself, "forgetting the quality of a general," went in a boat to discover where he might best effect a landing. The surf was high, and the shore was lined with troops ; he however embarked his men in boats, and ordered Raleigh to remain there with the ships, and occupy the attention of the enemy. He rowed to Villa Franca, some three leagues distant, a little thriving town, "rich in merchandise, wine, wood, and corn". He expected to have marched from thence to the capital, but was informed that the march was impos- sible "by reason of the high and craggy mountains on the way ". Perhaps he doubted the truth of this information ; for, as if undetermined how to proceed, he remained six days there, much to the satisfaction of the soldiers, who found there good wine as well as good pillage. Meantime a Brazil- man, mistaking the fleet for friends, came in among them, and was captured. A carrack of 1400 tons was bearing in with all sail, under a like mistake, when, notwithstanding Raleigh's orders, a " loggerheaded Hollander," either mis- taking or disregarding the signals, fired a shot at her, upon * Monson. Camden, 134. f This was but a sorry occasion for conferring honours ; yet it appears that at this time he knighted the Earls of Rutland and Southampton, Wil- liam Evers, William Brodon, and Henry Docwray. Camden, 534. ROBERT DEVEREUX 135 which the captain ran ashore under the castle. As soon as the wind lessened, Monson weighed with his ship, thinking to gain an attempt upon her, notwithstanding the fort ; but, perceiving this, the crew set her on fire. Raleigh then en- deavoured to reach her, in hopes of boarding time enough to extinguish the flames ; an attempt " not without great danger," says Sir Arthur Gorges, " to his own barge where he was, the surge being very outrageous. But before he could get up to her, she was all over thunder and lightning ; her ordnance discharging from every port ; and her whole hulk, masts, cordage, and furniture, overrun with such a thorough, yet distinct and unconfused blaze, as represented the figure of a ship more perfectly in fire, than could be done by any painter with all his art and colours. And when she was consumed even to the surface of the water, she exhaled as her last breath such clouds from her spicy entrails, as for a great way and for many hours perfumed the air and coast around." * Provisions were now becoming short, and Essex began "discreetly to foresee the danger in abiding towards winter upon these coasts, which could afford him no harbour, only open roads subject to southerly winds, and where upon every such wind he must put to sea for safety".-]- Should this happen when the troops were ashore, and the ships not be able to reach land in a fortnight or more, which was an ordinary thing, he considered in what a desperate case he should put himself; and so "concluding that he had seen the end of all his hopes," he re-embarked himself and army, though not without difficulty, the seas having grown high.| "In all this expedition," says Camden, "the English found fortune so adverse, that she might seem to have deluded and mocked them. And though chances and accidents are no- where more ordinary than at sea, yet their errors may seem to have been voluntary and wilful, and their disappointments wrought by some mean emulations among themselves, while they endeavoured to prevent each other of a little glory." The third day after they had set sail homeward, a heavy gale came on from the north, and " scattered the ships all the sea over ". Not one, however, was cast away ; and that storm was their providential means of deliverance from a great and unforeseen danger. The Spanish armament under the ade- * Monson, 175. Purchas. f Oct., 9. + Monson, 534. 136 ENGLISH SEAMEN lantado mayor of Castille, D. Martin de Padilla, instead of following the English from Ferrol, and venturing upon a sea fight, had at this time sailed for England, intending to land at Falmouth : they meant to fortify that place ; and having occupied it with a sufficient force, to put to sea and intercept Essex's fleet, as it returned scattered and unsuspicious of danger. Thus they hoped to cripple the naval strength of England, and with a reinforcement in a fleet of seven and thirty Levantine ships, to maintain themselves in Cornwall, and give the English occupation enough in their own country and their own seas, to prevent any farther attempt upon the Indies and upon Spain. When they were within a few leagues of the Scilly Islands, the adelantado commanded all his captains to board him and receive his directions. The storm came on while they were thus assembled ; the captains with great difficulty recovered their ships, but in no case were able to save their boats. The loss of the boats might alone have frustrated their design ; but the storm continued so furi- ous, that happy was he who could reach a Spanish port. Some got into Cadiz, others to Santander, Ribadeo or Muros. One put into Dartmouth when the men were almost famished. Eighteen foundered, two of their best galleons being of that number, — "God permitting," says Ferreras, "in his deep judgments, that all the efforts which were made by Spain against England should prove vain".* "We may say, and that truly," says Monson, "that God fought for us; for cer- tainly the enemy's designs were dangerous, and not diverted by our force, but by His will, who from time to time would not suffer the Spaniards in any one of their attempts to set footing in England." f " Thus Almighty God," says Camden, " the umpire of wars, kept asunder the two nations, who were hastening to the slaughter of one another, and their designs were on both sides at this time disappointed." J Essex reached England safely about the end of October, his ships leaky and weather-beaten, but with "no small booty". Not one of the objects for which the expedition was under- taken had been effected ; and the general and Raleigh, in their official account to the council, concluded by apologising for the failure thus : — " As we would have acknowledged that we had done but our duties if we had defeated the * Vol. XV., 401. t P. 176. X P. 535- ROBERT DEVEREUX 137 adelantado, taken the Spanish treasures, and conquered the islands of the Azores ; so, we having failed of nothing that God gave us the means to do, we hope Her Majesty will think our painful days, careful nights, cool diet, and many hazards, deserve not now to be measured by the event. The like honourable and just construction we promise ourselves at the hands of all my lords. As for others who have sat warm at home, and descant upon us, we know they wanted strength to perform more, and believe they wanted courage to adventure so much."* The expedition, however, had disappointed the Government as well as the people. It was thought that more than was attempted might have been done, and the proceedings against Raleigh were "greatly misliked". Raleigh was happy in having constant friends, who were able by their wisdom and authority to support him. These friends, who were great at court, "mightily graced his doings, and commended his experience at sea ".j- Essex had the mortification to see that his enemy, in which light he now again regarded him, stood high in the queen's favour. It mortified him also that, during his absence, the mastership of the wards had been given to Cecil ; and still more that the lord admiral had been advanced to the honour of Earl of Nottingham, the patent expres- sing that it was for his services against the Spanish Armada, in 1588, and also for his having, jointly with the Earl of Essex, valiantly and nobly taken, by main force, the isle and strongly fortified city of Cadiz. Essex, who challenged that glory wholly to himself, took this very heinously, as done in his disparagement. He held it also for a wrong, because this creation placed Nottingham in the same rank of nobility, and thereby gave him precedence, according to an Act of Henry VIII., by virtue of his office as lord admiral. Essex so stomached this, that he demanded an inquiry into his right by a commission appointed for that purpose, or that he might defend it by combat against Nottingham himself or any of his sons or name who would take up the cause, or that the queen would take the affair into her own hands, and then he would submit to whatever she might please to determine. Rash as he was, he would not have made this theatrical dis- play of displeasure unless and he had presumed largely on * Lediard, 364. f Sydney Papers, ii., 68, 75. 138 ENGLISH SEAMEN Elizabeth's good graces ; indeed the queen soon contented him by creating him earl marshal,* which appointment had been vacant for seven years. This gave him precedence over Nottingham ; and the old admiral, being then offended in his turn, resigned his staff of lord steward, and retired to his house at Chelsea, pretending sickness. As a farther proof of kindness to Essex, the queen signed a privy seal for 7000/., to be paid him out of the cochineal, as her free gift.f At this time France made a separate peace with Spain, leaving England to shift for herself. It then became a serious question in Elizabeth's council whether, having thus been deserted by their great ally, it did not behove them to treat for peace also. Burleigh was of this advice, "knowing the chance of war to be uncertain, the charges infinite, the treasury exhausted, and the common people inclinable to sedition if they were oppressed with extraordinary imposts ". He argued that there was an inbred disaffection in the vulgar towards the nobility ; that there was small hope of assistance from the States ; that our neighbours round about were to be suspected ; that there were many traitors at home ; that the Spaniard's wealth was not to be drawn dry ; and that the only good which could accrue to England by continuing the war was only to avert evil, which, of good consequences, is reputed the least. Essex, on the contrary, argued that no peace could be made but what would be dishonourable on the part of England, and fraudulent on that of Spain, where it was held as an undisputed axiom, that faith is not to be kept with heretics. This opinion he maintained with so much heat, that Burleigh took the Psalter and put it into his hand, silently pointing to these words, — ''The bloodthirsty shall not live out half their days".| The earl had a wise counsellor in Bacon, who endeavoured, * Lord Henry Howard, congratulating Essex on this appointment, says, " Though my Lord of Shrewsbury that last was could make no other use of the staff than by measuring the breadth of his fat oxen between the horns, yet if, against the judgment of the philosopher, there be a kind of cornutorum animantium that have denies in superiore mandibulo, they shall meet, I doubt not, with a marshal that can rule the staff, and knows how to marshal men of very good conditions in that latitude " {Birch, ii., 366). t Sydney Papers, ii., 77, 89. Birch's Memoir of Queen Elizabeth, ii., 365. Camden, 536. X Psalm Iv., 25. Camden, 555. Birch, 384. ROBERT DEVEREUX 139 by all means possible, to divert him from the course of the war and popularity ; and, upon seeing actions of charge and provocation put forth every spring, once said to him, "My lord, when I came first unto you 1 took you for a physician, that desired to cure the diseases of the State ; but now I doubt you will be like those physicians which can be content to keep their patients low, because they would always be in request". Bacon says he took this plainness "very well, as he had an excellent ear, and was paiieniissimus veri " ; but good counsel was lost upon him. With all his opportunities of knowing the queen's character, he mistook it in one great point, and '^had a settled opinion that she could be brought to nothing, but by a kind of necessity and authority " ; whereas Bacon warned him that the only course to be held with her was by obsequiousness and observance. The earl, when by violent ways at any time he had obtained his object, would ask him, " Now, sir, whose principles be true } " And Bacon answered, " My lord, these courses be like to hot waters ; they will help at a pang, but if you use them you shall spoil the stomach ; and shall be fain still to make them stronger and stronger, and yet in the end they will lessen their opera- tion".* A question arose who should be sent as lord-deputy to Ireland : it was debated at a council at which Essex, the lord admiral, Cecil, and the clerk of the signet, Windebank, were the only persons present. The queen was of opinion that Essex's uncle, Sir William Knollys, was the fittest man for the employment. Essex advised that Sir George Carew should be appointed ; his object was to remove him from court ; and he persisted pertinaciously in this opinion, against the queen, till, finding he could make no impression on her, he turned his back upon her contemptuously. This insolence *' exasperated her to so high a degree, that she gave him a box on the ear, and bade him go and be hanged". Stung, in his turn, to a not less unbecoming anger, he laid his hand on his sword hilt ; and when the lord admiral interposed, swore that he neither could nor would bear such an indignity, and that he would not have taken it even from Henry VlII.j- And with that he left the court. The lord keeper Egerton wrote to him upon this occasion, * Bacon, vi., 252, 258. t Camden, 556. Whitlocke, 274. Birch, ii., 384. 140 ENGLISH SEAMEN in a strain as judicious as it was friendly. He observed to him that "for the most part any man in his own cause standeth in his own light, and seeth not so clearly as he should " ; and he said to him, " If you hold still your course, which hitherto you find worse and worse (and the longer you tread this path the farther you are still out of the way), there is little hope or likelihood that the end will be better than the beginning. You are not so far gone but you may well return. The return is safe ; but the progress dangerous and desperate in this course you hold. If you have any enemies, you do that for them which they could never do for them- selves ; whilst you leave your friends to open shame and contempt, forsake yourself, overthrow your fortunes, and ruinate your honour and reputation ; giving that comfort to our foreign foes as greater they cannot have. For what can be more welcome and pleasing news to them, than to hear that Her Majesty and the realm are maimed of so worthy a member, who hath so often and so valiantly quailed and daunted them } You forsake your country when it hath most need of your help and counsel ; and lastly, you fail in your in- dissoluble duty which you owe to your most gracious sovereign, a duty not imposed upon you by nature and policy only, but by the religious and sacred bond in which the Divine majesty of God hath, by the rule of Christianity, obliged and bound you. My good lord, I want wisdom, and lack judgment to advise you ; but I will never want an honest and true heart to will and wish you well ; nor, being warranted by a good conscience, forbear to speak what I think. I have begun plainly : I hope your lordship will not be offended if I proceed still after the same fashion. The best remedy is not to con- tend and strive, but humbly to submit. Have you given cause, and yet take scandal to yourself.^ Why then, all you can do is too little to make satisfaction. Is cause of scandal given to you .'' Yet policy, duty, and religion enforce you to sue, yield, and submit to your sovereign, between whom and you there can be no proportion of duty ; and God himself requireth it as a principal bond of service to himself. When it is evident that great good may ensue of it to your friends, your country, and sovereign, and extreme harm by the contrary, there can be no dishonour or hurt to yield ; but in not doing it is dishonour and impiety. The difficulty, my good lord, is to conquer yourself, which is the height of all true valour and ROBERT DEVEREUX 141 fortitude ; whereunto all your honourable actions; have tended. Do it in this, and God will be pleased, Her Majesty well satisfied, your country will take good, and your friends comfort by it ; yourself (I mention you last, for 1 know of all these you esteem yourself least) shall receive honour ; and your enemies (if you have any) shall be disappointed of their bitter sweet hope." "My very good lord," said Essex in reply, "although there is not that man this day living, whom I would sooner make judge of any question that did concern me than yourself, yet must you give me leave to tell you, that in such a case I must appeal from all earthly judges ; and, if in any, then surelv in this, where the highest judge on earth hath imposed upon me, without trial or hearing, the most heavy judgment that ever hath been known. But since I must either answer your lord- ship's argument, or forsake my just defence, I will force mine aching head to do me some service for a small hour or two, although against my will." After touching then upon his discontentment, his enemies, his friends, and his fortune, he came to the point of his duty, which the lord keeper had pressed upon him. " I am tied unto my country," said he, " by two bands : in public peace to discharge carefully, faithfully, and industriously the trust which is committed unto me ; and the other private, to sacrifice for it my life and carcass, which hath been nourished in it. Of the first I am freed, being dismissed, discharged, and disabled by Her Majesty. Of the other nothing can free me but death ; and therefore no occasion of my performance shall offer itself but I will meet it half way. The indissoluble duty which I owe to Her Majesty is only the duty of allegiance, which I never will, nor never can fail in. The duty of attendance is no indissoluble duty. I owe Her Majesty the duty of an earl, and of Lord Marshal of England. I have been content to do Her Majesty the service of a clerk, but can never serve her as a villain or slave. But yet you say I must give way unto the time. So I do ; for now I see the storm come, I put myself into the harbour. Seneca saith we must give place unto fortune. I know that fortune is both blind and strong, and therefore I go as far out of her way as I can. You say the remedy is not to strive. I neither strive nor seek for remedy. But, say you, I must yield and submit. I can neither yield myself to be guilty, nor this imputation laid upon me to be just. I owe so much to the Author of all 142 ENGLISH SEAMEN truth, that I can never yield falsehood to be truth, nor truth to be falsehood. Have I given cause, ask you, and take scandal when 1 have done ? No ; I give no cause to take so much as Fimbria's complaint against me, for I did totum telum corpore recipere. I patiently bear all, and sensibly feel all that I then received, when that scandal was given me. Nay, more, when the vilest of all indignities was done unto me, doth religion enforce me to sue, or doth God require it? Is it impiety not to do it .^ What ! cannot princes err } cannot subjects receive wrong ? Is an earthly power or authority infinite } Pardon me, pardon me, my good lord, I can never subscribe to these principles. Let Solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken ; let those that mean to make their profit of princes strive to have no sense of princes' injuries ; let them acknowledge an infinite absoluteness on earth that do not believe in an infinite absoluteness in heaven. As for me, I have received wrong, and feel it. My cause is good ; I know it ; and whatsoever come, all the powers on earth can never show more strength and constancy in oppressing, than I can show in suffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed upon me. Your lordship, in the beginning, maketh yourself a looker-on, and me a player of my own game, so you can see more than I can : yet must you give me leave to tell you, in the end of my answer, that since you do but see, and I suffer, I must of necessity feel more than you do. I must crave your lordship's patience, to give him that hath a crabbed fortune licence to use a crabbed style. And yet, whatsoever my style is, there is no heart more humble to his superior, nor any more affected towards your lordship than that of your honour's poor friend, Essex."* Unfortunately Essex took no counsel with Bacon at this time, his advice was too prudent to be acceptable ; and still more unfortunately, he allowed his injudicious friends to publish this letter. It did not prevent his submission after a few weeks, nor stand in the way of a reconciliation with the queen ; but when grave offences were laid to his charge, the general principles which, upon slight occasion he had thus brought forward, were alleged against him as indications of a presumptuous temper and of dangerous doctrine. The queen, however, received him now again into favour, retaining no * Birch, ii., 384-388. ROBERT DEVEREUX 143 resentment for what had passed. Yet, it is said, his friends began shrewdly to fear his ruin, having observed that fortune is seldom reconciled to her foster-children when she hath once forsaken them, and princes more seldom to those whom they have offended. It is certain that they wronged Elizabeth Jby that opinion ; but it is probable that they possessed Essex with it, and thereby contributed to his ruin.* The discovery, at this time, of an attempt to take away the lives of Essex and the queen, may have moved Elizabeth to regard him more kindly, as proving in what estimation he was held by her enemies. The man who was accused of this intended crime (Squire by name) had been taken in Drake's last expedition, and carried prisoner into Spain, where he was converted to popery, and engaged, according to his dying declaration, by Walpole the Jesuit, to return to his own country and commit this treason. It was to be effected by poisoning the queen's saddle and the earl's chair. Squire protested that though he had consented to do this, his heart had failed. He suffered, however, upon his own full confession ; and though the Jesuits as usual denied in this case the specific application of their own doctrines, nothing is more notorious than that the Romish Church proclaimed and acted upon the opinion that " to take away the lives of excommunicated princes, was weeding the wicked out of the Lord's field ".j- England lost this year her greatest statesman in Burleigh, and in Philip II. her most formidable enemy. But the war with Spain continued still, and assumed a more dangerous character in Ireland than at any former time. In that worse than barbarous country it was that "the Roman locusts, who to maintain the Pope's usurped power, breathed everywhere fire and sword," | made their most successful efforts, " whether encouraged by the blind zeal of the ignorant Irish to popery, or animated by an old prophecy, saying, ' He that will England win, Must with Ireland first begin.' " The Reformation at first met with no opposition there. The nobles, not those of the pale only, but the most turbulent heads of the Irish tribes, and those of old English race, who having adopted the manners of the land, had become Hibernis * Camden, 556. ilbid.,s6i. % Fynes Moryson, part ii., p. 3. 144 ENGLISH SEAMEN ipsis Hibemiores — more Irish than the Irishry — united in pro- claiming Henry VIII. King of England, instead of lord, which was the only title the Pope had allowed to be assumed ; they signed indentures, in which they acknowledged him as the supreme head on earth, immediately under Christ, of the Church of England and Ireland ; and pledged themselves that as far as lay in their power they would jointly and separately exert themselves to annihilate the usurped primacy and authority of the Bishop of Rome, and expel and eradicate all his favourers, abettors, and partisans. * Ignorant as they were, they knew enough of their own history to know that the pretended rights of the Pope were so many usurpations upon the prerogatives of royalty ; and in humiliating a crafty and ambitious priesthood, they expected that most of the power and influence which the hierarchy had exercised would devolve upon themselves. The terrible thundering bull (as an honest friar ■]- calls it) which pronounced Henry to be dethroned, declared him infamous, cut him off from Christian burial, and devoted him to eternal damnation, was fulminated in vain. In vain were curses denounced against all who should acknowledge his impious claims, and the gates of heaven ordered to be thrown open as widely for those who should resist as the gates of hell for those who obeyed him. In spite of excommunications and indulgences, not a sword in Ireland was drawn in behalf of the Romish Church till the nobles perceived that it was the purpose of the English Government to curb their tyranny, and emancipate the people from the bondage in which they were held by them. Then they veered round, united with the priests ; and at the entreaties of Rome, and with the promised aid of the Spaniards, raised those rebellions which disturbed Elizabeth more than all other incidents of her eventful reign, and occasioned a greater expenditure of life than all her foreign wars. Insurrection after insurrection was suppressed, and one formidable rebellion was crushed; but a barbarous land was made more barbarous by the character of the war, and a ferocious people were rendered more ferocious by the spirit of malignant bigotry with which the emissaries of Rome * Phelan's History of the Policy of the Church of Rome in Ireland^ 83-86. + Peter Walsh- ROBERT DEVEREUX 145 imbued them, and which they then first thoroughly imbibed. Elizabeth's council was continually occupied with " the matters and miseries of Ireland". Upon the death of the lord deputy Burgh, the military command was given to the Earl of Ormond, with the title of lord lieutenant of the army. Tyrone, who had been the leader in the late insurrection, found treachery was then a safer course than rebellion ; he submitted ; most humbly acknowledged, in writing, the queen's "great mercy in giving him and his associates their pardons upon former submissions ; and upon the knees of his heart (a favourite phrase in those days), professed most heartily penitence for his disloyalty, and especially his foul relapses thereinto".* Upon this submission his pardon was drawn and sealed ; but having served his purpose by gaining time, he continued his old courses, with more confidence than ever, and with more formidable means. Thirty years had now brought the Irish kerns to some sort of discipline suited to the nature of the country. They had been at first so rude and inexpert, that two or three were required to discharge one piece ; they had now become skilful in managing such arms, and in bog and bush fighting. The English had a fort called Blackwater, which " lying on the chief passage into his country, was a great eyesore to him ". Tyrone assaulted this ; it was only a field work, garrisoned by a hundred men, who, under Captain Thomas Williams, repulsed a numerous body of assailants with great slaughter. Tyrone then blockaded it at safe distance, knowing that they were ill stored. But Williams "and his few warders did, with no less courage, suffer hunger; and having eaten the few horses they had, lived upon herbs growing on the ditches and walls, suffering all extremities," till Sir Henry Bagnall, Marshal of Ireland, was sent with some choice companies of foot and horse to their reUef. They marched from the camp, near Armagh, in three bodies, at too great distance apart, and with too little caution, having a boggy place on one hand, and woods on the other. Bagnall led the van ; and when he was out of sight of the other divisions, by reason of a hill between them, Tyrone with his whole force attacked him, slew him, fighting in the midst of his enemies, and bore down this body by dint of numbers. The middle body was at the same time thrown * Fynes Moryson, 24. 10 146 ENGLISH SEAMEN into confusion by their powder blowing up ; and endeavouring after this to bring off the remains of the van, they also were defeated, for losing their best captains they lost heart also. It was the greatest defeat that the English had ever received in Ireland, thirteen valiant captains being slain, and 1500 men, many of whom were of the old companies which had served under Norris in Bretagne ; but now being scattered in shameful flight, they were miserably slaughtered. Charles Montacute, with the horse, and not without great hazard, collected and brought off those who escaped. The fort sur- rendered. Captain Williams being ordered to join the remains of the force at Armagh, as all their safety depended upon the junction. It was a glorious victory to the rebels, and of special advantage. They got by it plenty of arms and pro- visions. Tyrone was celebrated over Ireland as the deliverer of his country. " All Ulster was in arms, all Connaught re- volted, and the rebels of Leinster swarmed in the English pale," while the English lay in their garrisons, in continual fear of being surprised therein. Elated with success, Tyrone wrote to the King of Spain, requesting that though the king might hear that he had solicited peace of the English, it might not be believed, for he had stopped his ears against all conditions, however reasonable, and would keep faith with the Spaniards. At the same time, with his wonted duplicity, he ceased not to profess the loyalty of his intentions ; and sent another proposal of submission, * accompanied with most unreasonable demands. To be lord deputy in Ireland was no desirable post at any time : f the disorders there were so great, of such long standing, and so difficult of cure, that even in that age statesmen seemed in despair to conclude that there was a curse upon the country. Nevertheless when the queen and * Camden, 565, 566. Fynes Moryson, 25, 26. " Will you think," says Moryson, " that Carthage ever bred such a dissembling fcedifragous wretch as Tyrone ? " t Rowland Whyte, writing a little before this to Sir Robert Sydney, says, " Sir William Russell, or Sir Walter Raleigh, was nominated to go lord deputy: but Russell hath absolutely refused to go; the other doth little like it. I pray God it fall not to your lot to go when you are here: a fair way to thrust you on to your own destruction" {Sydney Papers, ii., 96). Rowland Whyte knew that Sydney's father had found it " a purgatory," and that, while he held it, his constant prayer was to be recalled from that " miserable and accursed island 1 " ROBERT DEVEREUX 147 most of the council thought of appointing Charles Blunt, then Lord Mountjoy, Essex opposed the choice ; not that he now entertained any resentment of an old quarrel, but that he desired the office for himself Upon this occasion, though he had for some while been averse to consult with Bacon, he sent for him, and "in a set manner," desired his opinion. " I did not only," says that wise man, " dissuade, but protest against his going ; telling him with as much vehemency and asseveration as 1 could, that absence in that kind would ex- ulcerate the queen's mind, whereby it would not be possible for him to carry himself so as to give her sufficient content- ment, nor for her to carry herself so as to give him sufficient countenance ; which would be ill for her, ill for him, and ill for the State. And because I would omit no argument, I stood also upon the difficulty of the action, setting before him out of histories that the Irish were such as the ancient Gauls, or Britons, or Germans were ; and that we saw how the Romans, who had such discipline to govern their soldiers, and such donatives to encourage them, and the whole world in a manner to levy them, yet when they came to deal with enemies who placed their felicity only in liberty and the sharpness of their sword, and had the natural elemental ad- vantages of woods, and bogs, and hardness of bodies, they ever found they had their hands full of them ; and therefore I concluded that going over with such expectation as he did, and through the churlishness of the enterprise not like to answer it, would mightily diminish his reputation. And many other reasons I used, so as I am sure I never in any- thing in my lifetime dealt with him in like earnestness by speech, by writing, and by all the means I could devise. For I did as plainly see his overthrow chained as it were, by destiny, to that journey, as it is possible for any man to ground a judgment upon future contingents. But howsoever his ear was open, yet his heart and resolution were shut against that advice, whereby his ruin might have been pre- vented." * Bacon was a faithful counsellor ; but Essex gave ear to rash friends and covert enemies. He objected that Mountjoy had no experience in war more than the little he might have acquired in commanding a company in the Low Countries, * Bacon, vi., 253. 148 ENGLISH SEAMEN and again in Bretagne ; that he was too much given to book- ishness for a soldier ; and moreover that he had too mean an estate, and too few followers to undertake an office which required some prime man of the nobility, considerable for his power, dignity, and estate, who had before commanded an army, and who was both agreeable to the soldiers and re- spected by them. Herein he was thought to point himself out ; yet when the queen resolved upon appointing him, " he made a feigned show of refusing, praying her to confer so weighty a charge upon some abler person, though if any other were named, he had something ready to object". And he behaved himself, says Camden, * after such a manner, that his adversaries verily believed he wished nothing more than to have an army at his command, and to engage the sword-men to him ; f yea so eager was he about the business, that divers feared he was hatching some dangerous design, especially see- ing he showed himself more and more contumacious against her who had been so bountiful to him, and that his followers made great boasts of his descent from the royal family of the Scots, and of the blood royal of England, pretending that on this ground he had a better title to the succession than any of the other claimants, whose titles, except that of the Infanta of Spain, Persons the Jesuit, under the name of Doleman, had in a book dedicated to him invalidated. At any time it would have been dangerous to touch upon that point, and especially when Elizabeth's years were fast drawing to their close. Her faculties, however, and her brave spirit were unimpaired ; and * P. 568. t " He had of late lain so open to his enemies, as he had given them power to make his embracing of military courses, and his popular estima- tion, so much suspected of his sovereign, that his greatness was now judged to depend as much on her majesty's fear of him as her love to him. And, in this respect, he might seem to the queen most unfit for this service. But surely the earl was persuaded that his honour could not stand without embracing this action ; and, since he affected it, no man durst be his rival. Besides that, his enemies gladly put forward his design, that they might have him at more advantage by his absence from court. Finally, the vulgar gave ominous acclamations to his enterprise ; but the wiser sort rather wished than hoped happy effects, either to his private or the public good, in regard to the powerful enemies he left at court (whence all seconds were to come to him), and of his own distracted ends, though inclined to the public good, yet, perhaps, in aiming at the speedy end of this war and some other particulars, not fully concurring with the same " (Fynes Moryson, 26). ROBERT DEVEREUX 149 if her judgment may be arraigned for appointing Essex to this command, it must be not because it was dangerous to trust him thus at the head of an army, but because his abilities were not of the kind which were pecuharly required in such circumstances. She had never judged more wisely than when she would have preferred Mountjoy. The army assigned him was "as great as himself required," 1300 horse, and 16,000 foot; the number was afterwards raised to 20,000. It was such as Ireland had never before seen. "There was nothing which he wished for, but the officious (I will not, says Camden, say guileful) help of his rivals did obtain it for him. More ample authority was granted him than had been vested in most of his predecessors ; and he was to command the ships upon the Irish station, unless the lord admiral went himself to sea, and orders should be given for them to join his fleet. The more particular instructions were, that he should not confer the dignity of knighthood on any but worthy and well-deserving subjects (the imprudence which he had twice committed in this respect required this check) ; and that, disregarding all minor objects, he should direct his whole force against Tyrone, and his confederates, the Ulster rebels, planting garrisons at Loughfoyle, and Bali- shannon to straighten them. This course he had always insisted upon as necessary in both points, and had censured the former lord-deputies in general for neglecting to do both, and for protracting the war by frequent parleys with the enemy." * A proclamation was sent before him, declaring that the queen was at length constrained to make use of her power against rebels who had so long abused her clemency and patience, but disclaiming any such intention of conquering Ireland -f as was falsely imputed to her : that, she said, was not needed, the far greater part of the nobility and commonalty continuing constant in their allegiance. She offered mercy to those rebels who would return to their duty ; otherwise, they were threatened with destruction. Before his departure, he addressed this characteristic epistle to the queen : " From a mind delighting in sorrrow, from spirits wasted with passion, from a heart torn in pieces with care, grief and travel, from a man that hateth himself and all * Camden, 569. Fynes Moryson, 30. t Tyrone had spread about a report, that the queen had resolved to conquer the Irish nation and utterly extirpate it. Camden, 567. 150 ENGLISH SEAMEN things else that keep him alive, what service can your majesty expect, since any service past deserves no more than banish- ment and prescription to the cursedest of all islands ? It is your rebels pride and succession must give me leave to ransom myself out of this hateful prison, out of my loathed body ; which, if it happen so, your majesty shall have no cause to mistake the fashion of my death, since the course of my life could never please you. — ' Happy if he could finish forth his fate In some unhaunted desart, most obscure, From all society, from love and hate Of worldly folk ; then should he sleep secure ; Then wake again and yield God ever praise, Content with hips and haws and brambleberry. In contemplation passing out his days, And change of holy thoughts to make him merry ; Who when he dies his tomb may be a bush, Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush.' ''Your Majesty's exiled servant, " Robert Essex."* In the latter end of March, Essex departed from London, " with happy acclamations of the people, who to so worthy a general at the head of so strong an army did ominate nothing but victory". He was conducted on his way by many of the nobility, and accompanied with the flower of the English realm ; but it was remarked that at his setting forth it thundered in a clear sky, and that a violent shower presently followed.-[- His passage was stormy ; the Earl of Kildare and some gallant gentlemen, accompanying him in a little barque chosen for its swift sailing, were cast away. He soon found that he had been too confident of his own success, when he put himself forward for the command ; and his first despatches were in no hopeful strain. | The rebels in Munster, he said, had solemnly sworn at a public cross to be steadfast in their * Biographia Brifannica. f Camden, 569. J He might have remembered what his father-in-law, Walsingham, said of Essex, his father, and of Sir Henry Sydney, in a despatch to the latter, when the one was commander of the forces in Ireland, and the other lord deputy. " When I fall into consideration of the soundness of both your judgments, then do I shake off all fear ; but when I call to mind the cursed destiny of that island, I cannot put off all dread " {Sydney Papers, i., 74). ROBERT DEVEREUX 151 cause. No traitors came in, and the insolence of their be- haviour proved that they had no thought of submitting. Even those who professed obedience were so disaffected on religious as well as political grounds, that men who upon their private quarrels could bring an hundred horse and thrice as many foot, would protest that they could not bring five men to serve the State. Every active borderer had an agent with the rebels, and almost every one of the greatest in the State had some rebel for his client. Little or no assistance therefore, he said, could be looked for from the Irish ; and for the queen's army, large as it was, he must say that the plaister would do no more than cover the wound.* His first actions gave no proof of vigour or ability. Instead of striking at the head of the rebellion, according to his own advice in England, and the queen's express command, he was induced by some of the council who had their own interest in view to march against some rebels in Munster, where, taking Cahir Castle, and making a great prey of cattle, " he cast the terror of his forces on the weakest enemies, driving them into the woods and mountains, thereby impairing his reputation, and mispending his strength, with little injury to the enemy". During this expedition he wrote to the queen. " I dare begin," said he, ''to give your majesty some advertisement of the state of this kingdom, not, as before, by hearsay, but as I beheld it with my own eyes. The people in general have able bodies by nature, and have gotten by custom ready use of arms, and by their late successes boldness to fight with your majesty's troops. In their pride they value no men but themselves ; in their affections they love nothing but idleness and licentiousness ; in their rebellion they have no other end but to shake off the yoke of obedience to your majesty, and to root out all remembrance of the nation English in this king- dom. I say this of the people in general ; for I find not only the greater part thus affected, but that it is a general quarrel of the Irish, and they who do not profess it are either so few, or so false, that there is no account to be made of them. The Irish nobility and lords of countries do not only in their hearts affect this plausible quarrel, and are divided from us in religion, but have an especial quarrel to the English Government, be- cause it limiteth and tieth those who ever have been and ever • Fynes Moryson, 33, 152 ENGLISH SEAMEN would be, as absolute tyrants as any are under the sun. The towns being inhabited by men of the same religion and birth as the rest, are so carried away with the love of gain, that for it they will furnish the rebels with all things that may arm them, or enable them against the State or against themselves. The wealth of the kingdom, which consisteth in cattle, oat- meal, and other victuals, is almost all in the rebels' hands, who, in every province, till my coming, have been masters of the field. The expectation of all these rebels is very present and very confident that Spain will either so invade your majesty that you shall have no leisure to persecute them here ; or so succour them, that they will get most of the towns into their hands ere your majesty shall relieve and reinforce your army. So that now if your majesty resolve to subdue these rebels by force, they are so many and so famed to be soldiers, that the war of force will be great, costly, and long. If your majesty will seek to treat them by factions amongst themselves, they are covetous and mercenary, and must be purchased ; and their Jesuits and practising priests must be hunted out and taken from them, which now do solder them so fast and so close together. If your majesty will have a strong party in the Irish nobility, and make use of them, you must hide from them all purpose of establishing English Government, till the strength of the Irish be so broken that they shall see no safety but in your protection. If your majesty will be assured of the possession of your towns, you must have garrisons brought into them able to command them, and make it a capital oifence for any merchant in Ireland to trade with the rebels, or buy or sell any arms or munition whatsoever." He then advised that forces should be enrolled and trained in England, which would be no charge to her coffers ; that magazines of provisions should be formed on the west and north-west coasts, which would never be any loss, for in using them a kingdom might be secured, and if they were not used the old store might, if well handled, be sold to Her Majesty's profit ; and that ships both of war and transport might be held in readiness to waft over men and stores on the first alarm of a descent : to have ships thus armed being agreeable to her own provident and princely courses, and to the policy of all States. Having shown the dangers and disadvantages which were to be encountered in the great work of reducing Ireland, he ROBERT DEVEREUX 15S proceeded to show the strength and advantages which counter- vailed them. "First," said he, "these rebels are neither able to force any walled town, castle, or house of strength, nor to keep any that they get ; so that while your majesty keeps your army in strength and vigour, you are undoubt- edly mistress of all towns and holds whatsoever. By which means (if your majesty have good ministers) all the wealth of the land shall be drawn into the hands of your subjects ; your soldiers in the winter shall be carefully lodged and readily supplied of any wants ; and we that command may make the war offensive and defensive, may fight and be in safety, as occasion is offered. Secondly, your majesty's horse- men are so incomparably better than the rebels, and their foot are so unwilling to fight in battle or gross (however they may be desirous to skirmish and fight loose), that your majesty may be always mistress of the champaign countries, which are the best parts of this kingdom. Thirdly, your majesty victualling your army out of England, and with your garrisons burning and destroying the country in all places, shall starve the rebels in one year, because no place else can supply them." Fourthly, he hoped soon to make them bankrupt of their old store of arms and munitions, and that her seamen would keep them from receiving any new. " Fifthly, your majesty," he said, " hath a rich store of gallant colonels, captains, and gentlemen of quality, whose example and execution are of more use than all the rest of your troops ; whereas the men of best quality among the rebels, which are their leaders and their horsemen, dare never put themselves to any hazard, but send their kerns and their hirelings to fight with your troops ; so that although their common soldiers are too hard for our new men, yet are they not able to stand before such gallant men as will charge them. Sixthly, your majesty's commanders, being advised and exer- cised, know all advantages, and by the strength of their order will in all great fights beat the rebels. For they neither march, nor troop, nor fight in order ; but only by the benefit of their footmanship can come on and go off at their pleasure, which makes them attend a whole day, still skirmishing and never engaging themselves ; so that it hath ever been the fault and weakness of your majesty's leaders, whensoever you have received any blow ; for the rebels do but watch and attend upon all gross oversights. Now if it please your majesty to compare your advantages and disadvantages, you shall find 154 ENGLISH SEAMEN that though these rebels are more in number than your army, and have (though I do unwilUngly confess it) better bodies, and perfecter use of their arms than those men which are sent over, yet, commanding the walled towns, holds of champaign country, and having a brave nobility and gentry, a better discipline, and stronger order than they, and such means to keep from them the maintenance of their life, and to waste the country which should nourish them, your majesty may promise yourself that this action will in the end be success- ful, though costly ; and that your victory will be certain, though many of us your honest servants must sacrifice our- selves in the quarrel, and that this kingdom will be reduced, though it will take (besides cost) a great deal of care, industry, and time." Thus far he had written as a general and a statesman : he concluded his despatch as a courtier, and in a strain which no man but Essex would have addressed to Elizabeth. "But why do I talk of victory or success ? Is it 'not known that from England I receive nothing but discomforts and soul's wounds ? Is it not spoken in the army that your majesty's favour is diverted from me, and that already you do bode ill both to me and it ? Is it not lamented of your faithfullest subjects both there and here, that a Cobham, or a Raleigh (I will forbear others for their place's sake), should have such credit and favour with your majesty, when they wish the ill success of your majesty's most important action, the decay of your greatest strength, and the destruction of your faithfullest servants ? Yes, yes, I see both my own destiny and your majesty's desires, and do willingly embrace the one and obey the other. Let me honestly and zealously end a wearisome life : let others live in deceitful and inconstant pleasure. Let me bear the brunt and die meritoriously : let others achieve and finish the work and live to erect trophies. But my prayer shall be, that when my sovereign loseth me, her army may not lose courage, or the kingdom want physic, or her dearest self miss Essex ; and then I can never go in a better time, nor in a fairer way. Till then I protest before God and His angels, that I am a true votary, that is, sequestered from all things but my duty and my charge. I perform the uttermost of my body's, mind's and fortune's ability, and more should, but that a constant care and labour agree not with an inconstant health, in an unwholesome and uncertain climate. This is the hand ROBERT DEVEREUX 155 of him that did live your dearest, and will die your majesty's faithfullest servant, " Essex." * He complained in the same strain to the lords of the council when sending them a journal of this unprofitable expedition. "The only gloss/' said he, "that I can make upon the plain and true text I send is, that if so much hath not been here performed as is there by Her Majesty expected, either it hath been because she hath made choice of an insufficient minister, or because it hath pleased her to match him with a weak and insufficient council. But as I ever said, and ever must say, I provided for this service a breastplate, and not a cuirass ; that is, I am armed on the breast, but not on the back. I armed myself with confidence that rebels in so unjust a quarrel could not fight so well as we could in a good. Howbeit, if they shall but once come to know that I am wounded on the back, not slightly, but to the heart, . . . as I fear me they have too true and too apparent advertisement of this kind, . . . then what will be their pride and the State's hazard your lord- ships in your wisdom may easily discern." j- Towards the end of July he brought back his forces into Leinster, " weary, sick, and incredibly diminished in number". He had the mortification presently to find, what he ought to have foreseen, that the Irish lords whom he had, as he sup- posed, brought to obedience by this rash expedition, had served their purpose by a simulated submission, and were again acting with the rebels. Six hundred men also in the meantime had suffered one of those disasters which, as he truly said, never could occur but through misconduct and gross oversight. Having the advantage of numbers, and the disadvantage of ground, they were put to the rout, and many cut to pieces without striking a blow. This was imputed to the unskil fulness of some young captains and soldiers, and the ill affection of some Irish officers ; and it was severely punished. The lieutenant, who gave the first example of cowardice, was condemned and suffered death. The other officers, though they forsook not their place assigned them, but were forsaken by their soldiers, yet because in such an extremity and distress they had not done something very * Fynes Moryson, 34-37. f Birch, ii., 420. 156 ENGLISH SEAMEN extraordinary to encourage the soldiers and acquit them- selves, were all cashiered and imprisoned. The men were all sentenced to suffer death ; and when mercy was extended, it was by lot, and every tenth was executed. The commander. Sir Henry Harrington, was reserved till the queen's pleasure concerning him should be known. When Essex communicated this unwelcome intelligence to the queen's council, he replied to a reprimand which he had received for having appointed a Southampton to the command of the horse. The queen was displeased with that nobleman, because, disregarding what was then the custom, he had, without imparting his intention to her and obtaining her permission, married a kinswoman of Essex ; and she now, through her council, reminded the earl that she had expressly forbidden him to give him any command, and gave orders that he should be displaced. The earl alleged that there had been no prohibition. "1 remember," said he, "that Her Majesty in the privy chamber at Richmond, I only being with her, showed a dislike of his having any office ; but my answer was, that if Her Majesty would revoke my commission, I would cast both it and myself at Her Majesty's feet ; but if it pleased Her Majesty that I should execute it, I must work with my own instruments. And now, my lords, were it now as then it was, that I were to choose, or were there nothing in a new choice but my Lord of Southampton's disgrace and my discomfort, I should easily be induced to displace him. But when, in obeying this command, I must discourage all my friends, who now seeing the days of my suffering draw near, follow me afar off, and are some of them tempted to renounce me ; when I must dismay the army, which already looks sadly, as pitying both me and itself in this comfortless action ; when I must encourage the rebels, who doubtless will think it time to hew upon a withering tree, whose leaves they see beaten down, and the branches in part cut off; when I must disable myself for ever in the course of this service, the world now perceiving that I want either reason to judge of merit, or freedom to right it, disgrace being thus heaped where in my opinion rewards are due : — Give just grief leave even to com- plain ! Oh ! miserable employment, and more miserable destiny of mine, that make it impossible for me to please and serve Her Majesty at once ! Was it treason in my Lord of Southampton to marry my poor kinswoman, that neither ROBERT DEVEREUX 157 long imprisonment, nor any punishment besides that hath been usual in like cases, can satisfy or appease ? Or will no kind of punishment be fit for him, but that which punisheth not him, but me, this army, and this poor country of Ireland ? Shall I keep the country when the army breaks ? Or shall the army stand when all the volunteers leave it ? Or will any voluntaries stay when those whom they have will and cause to follow are thus handled ? No, ray lords ; they already ask passports, and that daily. Yea, I protest before God, they that have best conditions here are as weary of them as prisoners of fetters. They know, their people know, yea the rebels know, my discomforts and disgraces. It is a common de- mand, how shall he long prosper to whom they that have Her Majesty's ear wish worse than to Tyrone or O'Donnel? My good lords, I do prostrate myself at Her Majesty's feet I will humbly and contentedly suffer whatsoever she will lay upon me ; I will take any disgraceful displacing of me, or after-punishing of me, dutifully and patiently : but I dare not, whilst I am her minister in this great action, do that which shall overthrow both me and it." * He displaced Southampton, however, when the queen's orders were repeated, at a time when (in his own words) he was so distracted with the misery of Connaught, the wants of Munster, the mutiny of Leinster, and the want of men able to take charge, that if he had not borne these frowns of fortune and torture of mind for Her Majesty's service, he should quickly have found a fair way to free himself. " Shall I cut them off," said he, " by the sword } Our only English soldiers partly sicken and partly run away, finding this the worst of all countries ; our new men are unserviceable, and the Irish unfaithful. Shall I reduce the kingdom by composition } I might justly have conceived great hope of effecting it, had Her Majesty's wonted favour towards me continued, and had it shone over me in such brightness as this service requireth. But now who will be desirous to come under a roof that threateneth ruin ? or who will make his way to safety by him that is no way safe himself? Whilst I hve and last let me be put to all painful tasks, for now all former delights have abandoned me, and left me this only comfort, the meditation of my only martyrdom. In the meantime, for my dear * Birch, ii., 421, 422. 158 ENGLISH SEAMEN sovereign's sake, for my country's sake, for your own interest as sworn counsellors of State, advise Her Majesty what in reason may be expected, if she lose one of her two kingdoms, her best forces, and (which I would boldly add, however 1 assure myself it will be least regarded) her true servant, who hath faithfully, and for Her Majesty not unfortunately, managed the latest and greatest actions." * Essex complained with more justice of the persons with whom he had to act in Ireland, than of his enemies at court. "If I," said he, "employ my utmost means and use all possible industry, yet others may be drones. If I follow the service with that zeal and integrity which my duty to my dread sovereign requireth at my hands, yet others may, nay, others do, cunningly treat and patch compositions, and make their way with the rebels. Neither are these a few, but almost all who have anything to lose ; gentlemen and noble- men. Irishmen and Englishmen, captains and pensioners, governors and privy counsellors. My instances are ready ; and themselves, when I charge them with it, cannot deny it. What war shall the body of this estate be able to sustain that hath no part in it sound ? Or what hope is there that I shall make a speedy end of the war ? " f In this representation there was nothing overcharged ; but the complaints which he addressed to the queen were those of a jealous favourite, or if less charitably interpreted, of a designing malcontent. He had had no cause to think himself ill-treated, or his army neglected, when he wrote thus to Elizabeth : — "Let me fall as low and as soon as destiny and yourself have decreed, — I am prepared for all things. But, dear sovereign, when you are weary of me, let me die as a private man. Take care of your honour ; take pity of your brave army, whereof, for the time, I am the head and soul ; and take to heart that our success imports your estate. Value such honest men as we that undergo all hazards and miseries for your safety and greatness, and cherish such gallant and worthy servants as this bearer, who will take it for as great hap- piness to be sacrificed for you, as others whom you favour most will do to be made great and happy by you. Cherish them, I humbly beseech you, upon the knees of my heart, for they must sweat and bleed for you, when a crew of those which * Birch, 423. t Ibid., 424. ROBEIRT DEVEREUX 159 now more delight you will prove but unprofitable servants. And if your majesty, — if you, I say, whose parting with me so pierced my very soul, can be transformed by those sirens that are about you, then think that you shall quickly hear that a brave death shall ransom from scorn and misery, " Your majesty's humblest servant, " Essex." * The discontent which this letter implies was aggravated by his hearing that the mastership of the wards, a lucrative office, which he had promised to himself, had been conferred on Cecil. Soured by disappointment, by the success of one whom he considered as an intriguing enemy, by the loss of time which he had incurred, the diminution of his forces, the falsehood of the Irish who had fooled him with their feigned submission, the want of cordiality in his official counsellors, and . . . what, perhaps, he now first felt, . . . the want of confidence in himself, his conduct was now marked by that vacillation which always marks the policy of those who are unfit for the situation wherein they are placed, and unequal to the difficulties wherewith they are surrounded. Scarcely had he despatched advices to England that he was about to march upon Ulster, against Tyrone, than he changed his purpose and went against the O'Connors and O'Haras near Dublin. Here his success was easy and unimportant, and on his return he found it necessary to ask for a reinforcement of 3000 foot before he could undertake the Ulster journey. Meantime he ordered Sir Conyers Clifford, the Governor of Connaught, to march towards Bellike, with the view of drawing some of Tyrone's forces upon that side, while he should assail him on the other. Clifford accordingly set forth with 1400 foot, and Southampton's troop of 100 horse under Captain Jephson. Coming to the Carlow Mountains, he left the munition and carriages under Jephson's guard, while he advanced with the foot to try the passage ; there he found some 200 Irishry under O'Rourke, who, having the advantage of woods, bogs, and a stony causey, attacked him, harassed him till his powder began to fail, and his men, wearied before with a long march, to faint, and then they presently took flight. In this shame- ful defeat some 120 men fell, including their commander, and ♦ Birch, 415. 160 ENGLISH SEAMEN as many more were wounded ; and the rest must all have per- ished if the Lord of Dunkellyn, who that day had most valiantly behaved himself, had not sent word to Jephson of their dis- tress : he forthwith charged upon the causey, and to the very skirts of the wood, with such resolution, that the rebels, either thinking horse could not have served there, or expecting ad- vantage in that boggy place, gave way without any resistance, thus giving the broken infantry leisure to retire upon their carriages, and thence to the abbey of the Boyle, which was near at hand. The governor being slain, and the troops utterly dismayed, it was thought fit that they should retreat to their garrison. So Jephson kept the ford, while the foot in the silent night retired, and in the morning he with the horse went softly after them to the castle of Athlone.* By this time the reinforcement had arrived ; but even with this succour Essex was fain to signify that he could do no more than draw 1300 foot and 300 horse to the borders of Ulster. He was now reduced to send home a vindication of his con- duct. •)* To these letters, which he sent by his secretary Mr. Cuffe, a person deeply implicated in the subsequent tragedy, the queen herself replied, — "Having," she said, *^' sufficiently de- clared unto you before this time how little the manner of your proceedings hath answered either our direction or the world's expectation, and finding now a course more strange, if stranger may be, we are doubtful what to prescribe you at any time, or what to build upon by your own witness to us in anything. For we have clearly discerned of late that you have ever to this hour possessed us with expectations that you would pro- ceed as we directed you ; but your actions show always the contrary, though carried in such sort as you were sure we had no time to countermand." Reminding him then of the plan which he had laid down in England, and how entirely he had departed from it, drawing her on by little and little to expense, and by protestations of great resolutions in generalities, till they came to particular execution, — "of all which courses," said she, " whosoever shall examine any of the arguments used for excuses, shall find that your own proceedings begot the difficulties, and that no just * Moryson, 37, 38. Camden, 570. Birch, 425, 426. f Sydney Papers, ii., 118. Rowland Whyte says, " I' saw an apology he made of his own doings ; and your lordship may judge in what state a man stands that is forced to do that ". ROBERT DEVEREUX l6l causes do breed the alteration. If lack of numbers, if sickness of the army be the causes, why was not the action undertaken when the army was in better state ? If winter's approach, why were the summer months of July and August lost ? If the spring was too soon, and the summer that followed other- wise spent, — if the harvest that succeeded was so neglected that nothing hath been done, then surely must we conclude that none of the four quarters of the year will be in season for you and that council to agree of Tyrone's prosecution, for which all our charge was intended. Further we require you to consider, whether we have not great cause to think that the purpose is not to end the war, when yourself have so often told us that all the petty undertakings in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught are but loss of time, consumption of treasure, and waste of our people, until Tyrone himself be first beaten, on whom the rest depend. Do you not see that he maketh the war with us in all places by his ministers, seconding all places where any attempts be offered? Who doth not see that if this course be continued, the wars are like to spend us and our kingdom beyond all moderation, as well as the report of the success in all parts hath blemished our honour, and en- couraged others in no small proportion ? We know you cannot so much fail in judgment as not to understand that all the world seeth how time is dallied, though you think the allow- ance of that council, whose subscriptions are your echoes, should serve and satisfy us. How would you have derided any man else that should have followed your steps ! How often have you told us that others which preceded you had no intent to end the war ! How often have you resolved us that until Loughfoyle and Ballishannon were planted, there could be no hope of doing service upon the capital rebels ! We must, therefore, let you know, that as it cannot be ignorance, so it cannot be want of means ; for you had your asking : you had choice of times, — you had power and authority, more ample than ever any had, or ever shall have. It may well be judged with how little contentment we search out this and other errors ; for who doth willingly seek for that which they are so loth to find? But how should that be hidden which is so palpable?" The queen then admonished him that his despatches ought not to be filled with impertinent arguments, and savour of humours that concerned only himself. "We," said she, "do 11 162 ENGLISH SEAMEN tell you plainly, that are of that council, that we wonder at your indiscretion, to subscribe to letters which concern our public service, when they are mixed with any man's private, and directed to our council table, which is not to handle things of small importance." What followed must have been worm- wood to one who had so long presumed upon his own fortune and the queen's favour : — '' To conclude, if you will say, though the army be in list 20,000, that you have them not, we answer then to our treasurer that we are ill served, and that there need not so frequent demands of full pay. If you will say the muster-master is to blame, we must muse then why he is not punished ; though say we might to you our general, if we would, ex jure propriojudicare, that all defects by ministers, yea, though in never so remote garrisons, have been affirmed to us to deserve to be imputed to the want of care of the general. For the small proportion you say you carry with you of the 3500 foot, when lately we augmented you 2000 more, it is to us past comprehension, except it be that you have left still too great numbers in unnecessary garrisons, which do increase our charge and diminish your army, which we command you to reform ; especially since you, by your continual reports of the state of every province, describe them all to be in worse condition than ever they were before you set foot in that kingdom. So that whosoever shall write the story of the year's action must say, that we were at great charges to hazard our kingdom, and you have taken great pains to pre- pare for many purposes which perish without undertaking.* We have seen a writing, in form of a cartel, full of challenges that are impertinent, and of comparisons that are needless, such as hath not before this time been presented to a State, except it be done now with a hope to terrify all men from censuring your proceedings. Had it not been enough to have sent us the testimony of the council, but that you must call so many of those that are of slender experience, and none of our council, to such a form of subscription ? Surely, howsoever you may have warranted them, we doubt not but to let them know what belongs to us, to you, and to themselves, "-j- Bacon meantime saw in the evident alteration of the queen's * Moryson has understanding, and Birch follows him. I have ventured to substitute what I suppose to have been the original word, t Moryson, 39-41. ROBERT DEVEREUX l68 mind towards Essex, how true a prophet he had been, and was still in watch, he says, to find the best occasion that in the weakness of his power he could either take or minister to put him out of the fire if it had been possible. One day, when Elizabeth had shown a passionate distaste of the earl's pro- ceedings in Ireland, as if they were unfortunate, without judgment, contemptuous, and not without some private end of his own, Bacon, to whom she had spoken thus, replied to this effect : " Madam, I know not the particulars of estate ; and I know this, that princes' actions must have no abrupt periods or conclusions ; but otherwise I would think that if you had my Lord of Essex here with a white staff in his hand, as my Lord of Leicester had, and continued him still about you for society to yourself, and for an honour and ornament to your attendance and court in the eyes of your people and in the eyes of foreign ambassadors, then were he in his right element : for to discontent him as you do, and yet to put arms and power into his hands, may be a kind of temptation to make him prove cumbersome and unruly ".* Even Bacon, it seems, thought that Essex might become dangerous,-)- and that, in his present state of mind, the com- mand of an army could not safely be entrusted to him. He was the last of those nobles who believed themselves strong enough to brave the crown, and in case of extremities to try the chance of arms. He knew not that the roots of that power had been cut which rendered the last generation of barons formidable to the throne. Because he was popular, he * Bacon, vi., 254. t Shakespeare bears incidental testimony to the popularity of Essex at this time, when, in the last act of Henry V., the chorus describes his return to the metropolis after the battle of Agincourt. " But now behold In the quick forge and working-house of thought, How London doth pour out her citizens I The mayor and all his brethren in best sort, Like to the senators of the antique Rome, With the plebeians swarming at their heels, Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in : As by a lower, but a loving likelihood, Were now the general of our gracious empress, (As in good time he may) from Ireland coming. Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, How many would the peaceful city quit To welcome him ! " 164 ENGLISH SEAMEN fancied himself powerful; and before he had conceived, or perhaps even dreamt of any perilous designs, unlucky connec- tions had rendered him an object of suspicion. While on the one hand the papists courted his favour, the Puritans on the other availed themselves of his protection, and he gave them secretly all the encouragement he durst ; and though he held back when he perceived the danger which their "heady courses " were likely to bring upon the State, his old tutor Whitgift always deemed it necessary to keep a vigilant eye over him.* He had taken Antonio Perez under his patronage, an able, but vainglorious and unscrupulous adventurer, whom, though he was persecuted by Philip II., Elizabeth regarded with abhorrence, as a bad subject and bad man. Lest Philip should demand him, she declared that he had been sent over by the French king to his ambassador here, and that she neither did nor would relieve him with pension or protection. "Verily," says Camden,-]- "she detested J the man, who had, contrary to his allegiance, divulged his king's secrets. Bur- leigh scarce vouchsafed him a conference or speaking to ; but Essex entertained him in his house, and supplied him largely with money, using him as his counsellor, yea as an oracle." Perez fed Essex with the grossest flatteries,§ and foiled not to represent that his attachment to his benefactor was regarded in England as a crime. His letters to the earl were inter- cepted ; and the suspicions entertained of Essex were so strong, that when a large force by land and sea was made ready at this time with unexampled celerity, it was believed to have been * Sir G. Paul, Life of Whitgift. f Camden, 485. X Henri IV. was at one time inclined to employ him in Holland. Through Essex's means he was recommended to Prince Maurice, and to the French minister at the Hague. But when Elizabeth was asked for a passport, she demanded in reply whether he wanted to do mischief in that country as he had done in this ? And she added, that at the Dutch ambassador's table he had asserted and maintained that one king might, with a safe conscience, procure the assassination of another with whom he was at war (Peter Bor, iii., 884). §"Mylorde, mi millies my lorde ! — quid tu Romanam tuam excusas linguam, qui excellis Romanos eloquentia, et virtute animi ? Discant, discant critici isti Sabelli, Smythi, Hammondi, et glorientur te praeceptorem sicut dominum habere ; et me in hoc imitentur et sequantur. Vale, prae- ceptor et domine. — Quis enim, cum te invenerit, requiescere poterit in hie vel in ilia, in una vel in altera tuarum mille virtutum ; quum earum quaedam trahant, quaedam inebrient, dominatrices omnes et sensuum cor- poris et facultatum animi " {Obras, 646, 647, 650). ROBERT DEVEREUX l65 intended as a measure of precaution against his dangerous designs.* Before the queen's letter was written, Essex had marched against Tyrone, had come in sight of him, offered him battle, parleyed with him on that offer being refused, and agreed to a cessation of arms for six weeks, and so from six weeks to six more, till May-day, either party being at liberty at any time, upon fourteen days' warning, to renew the war. Tyrone retired with all his forces into the heart of his country, ready to break his recent oath whenever there should be an op- portunity of gaining by breaking as much as he had gained by pledging it ; and Essex dismissed his army and went to take physic at Dredah ! Disordered no doubt he was in body and in mind ; and well he might have been, if nothing worse had been transacted than what was public and notorious in the disgraceful termination of a campaign which had been con- ducted throughout either with great incapacity or ill intent. But the suspicions which had been entertained of his designs were not without foundation. Early in the campaign, a certain Henry Lee, of Reban Castle, had opened a treasonable com- munication with Tyrone, who assured the earl through him that, if he would follow his counsel, he would make him the greatest man that ever was in England. Tyrone's friends affirmed the agreement between them was, that Essex should be King of England, and Tyrone Viceroy of Ireland, from whence he was to assist him at any time with 8000 men. Essex did not communicate these designs to Sir Christopher Blunt, who had married his mother (Leicester's widow), and who was then confined by a wound at Lee's castle ; but he had advised with him how to proceed against his enemies at court, saying he intended to land a choice part of his army at Milford, or thereabouts, and so securing his descent, gather such other forces as might enable him to march to London. * Monson, 178. "One benefit," he says, "which we received by this preparation was, that our men were now taught suddenly to arm, every man knowing his command, and how to be commanded, which before they were ignorant of; and who knows not that sudden and false alarms in an army are sometimes necessary ? To say truth, the expedition which was then used in drawing together so great an army by land, and rigging so great and royal a navy to sea, in so little a space of time, was so admirable in other countries, that they received a terror by it : and many that came from beyond sea said the queen was never more dreaded abroad for anything she ever did." l66 ENGLISH SEAMEN Blunt had known for the last three years that Essex was of an ambitious and discontented mind, and that this discontent was growing dangerous ; but, connected as he was with the earl, his choice lay only between treason and misprision. To secure his own safety by betraying him was not to be thought of; and there was the possibility always of persuading him to a better mind, — till he had advanced too far for retreat. Then, indeed. Blunt entered fully into his schemes ; but wishing to avoid the danger and the consequence of an open rebellion, he represented these strongly to Essex, and advised him, in- stead of taking over the army, to go himself with a good train, and make sure of the court, and then make his own conditions.* Upon this advice Essex acted as soon as he received the queen's letter. He committed the Government to the Arch- bishop of Dublin and the treasurer at war, and embarked without delay. He took with him Southampton and " certain of his choice friends," with other captains and some gentlemen of his household, who, as soon as they landed, departed, some one way, some another ; while he, with only six persons in his company, rode post to Westminster. The court was then at Nonesuch ; taking oars at Westminster, he crossed to Lam- beth, and there took such horses as he saw waiting for their masters. Sir Thomas Gerard overtook him ; and hearing that Lord Gray of Wilton, who was one of his most declared enemies, had passed him on the road without saluting him, he rode hard to overtake him, and requested that he would slacken his pace, and let my Lord of Essex bring the first news of his return himself. *' Doth he desire it .f* " said Lord Gray. ** No," replied Sir Thomas ; "nor I think will desire anything at your hands." "Then," said he, "I have business," and made greater haste than before. f It is said that when this was told Essex, one of his Irish friends. Sir Christopher St. Laurence, offered his services to kill both Lord Gray and Cecil in the court; but the earl, who "from his soul hated such impiety " — and ought to have hated such counsellors, — re- jected the insane proposal. Gray reached court a quarter of an hour before the earl, and went forthwith to Cecil, who probably thought it the best policy on so unexpected an occurrence to see what course * State Triahj i., 1432-1433, 1415. t Sydney Papers, 128. Camden, 575. Birch, 433. ROBERT DEVEREUX l67 things would take. It was about ten in the morning when Essex arrived post at the court gate, " and made all haste up to the presence, and so to the privy chamber, and stayed not till he came to the queen's bed-chamber, where," says Rowland Whyte, "he found the queen newly up, the hair about her face. He kneeled unto her, kissed her hands, and had some private speech with her, which seemed to give him great con- tentment ; for coming from Her Majesty to go shift himself in his chamber, he was very pleasant, and thanked God, though he had suffered much trouble and storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. 'Tis much wondered at here that he went so boldly to Her Majesty's presence, she not being ready, and he so full of dirt and mire that his very face was full of it. About eleven he was ready, and went up again to the queen, and conferred with her till half an hour after twelve. As yet all was well, and her usage very gracious towards him. He went to dinner, and during all that time discoursed merely of his travels and journeys in Ireland ; of the goodness of the country, the civilities of the nobility that are true subjects, of the great entertainment he had in their houses, of the good order he found there. He was visited frankly by all sorts here of lords, and ladies, and gentlemen : only strangeness is observed between him and the leaders of that party." After dinner "he went up to the queen, but found her much changed in that small time ; for she began to call him to question for his return, and was not satisfied in the manner of his coming away, and leaving all things at so great hazard ". She appointed the lords to hear him : *' they went to council in the afternoon ; and between ten and eleven at night a command came from the queen that he should keep his chamber".* * Sydney Papers, 127, 128. " As God help me," says Rowland Whyte, *• it is a very dangerous time here ; for the heads of both factions being here, a man cannot tell how to govern himself towards them. For here is such observing and prying into men's actions, that I hold them happy and blessed that live away" (29th September, 1599). Next day he says, " It is a world to be here to see the humours of the times. Blessed are they that can be away and live contented. ... I must beseech your lordship to burn my letters, else shall I be afraid to write, the time is now so full of danger. ... If you write by post, take heed what you write, for now letters are intercepted and stayed" {Sydney Papers, 128, 129). 168 ENGLISH SEAMEN On the morrow, after the forenoon had been spent in council, Essex was summoned before the lords : they rose and saluted him when he entered ; but when they resumed their seats he stood bareheaded at the upper end of the board, and answered all that was objected against him. The examina- tion, which continued three hours, was very private. " I heard," says Rowland Whyte, " that never man answered with more temper, more gravity, or discretion, to those matters laid to his charge : his contemptuous disobedience of Her Majesty's letters and will in returning ; his presumptuous letters written from time to time ; his proceedings in Ireland, contrary to the points resolved upon here ere he went ; his rash manner of coming away ; his overbold going yesterday to Her Majesty's presence, to her bed-chamber ; his making of so many idle knights." This was on the Saturday : he was remanded to his chamber, and on Monday was committed to his lord keeper's custody at York House. During the interval Bacon, on being asked by the earl in a short private conference what was his opinion of the course taken with him, replied, " My lord, nubecula est, cito transihit ; it is but a mist. But shall I tell your lordship, it is as mists are : if it go upwards, it may perhaps cause a shower ; if downwards, it will clear up. And therefore, good my lord, carry it so as you take away by all means all umbrages and distastes from the queen ; and especi- ally, if I were worthy to advise you (as I have been by your- self thought, and now your question imports the continuance of that opinion), observe three points : first, make not this cessation or peace which is concluded with Tyrone as a service wherein you grlory, but as a shuffling up of a prosecution which was not very fortunate. Next, represent not to the queen any necessity of state whereby, as by a coercion or wrench, she should think herself enforced to send you back to Ireland, but leave it to her. Thirdly, seek access importune opportune, seri- ously, sportingly, every way." The earl heard him patiently, but spake few words, and sometimes shook his head as if in dissent. "Sure I am," says Bacon, "he did just contrary in every one of these three points.""^ At his going from court few or none of his friends ac- companied him. Rowland Whyte says, " I hear he takes all things very patient, and endures this affliction like a wise * Bacon, vi., 256. ROBERT DEVEREUX 169 man. It seems that his offence^ towards Her Majesty are great, seeing it is her will to hati s this done unto him. He is a most unfortunate man, to give so gracious a queen cause to disfavour or disgrace him. But God, I trust, in time will turn her heart again towards him ; for it will not enter into my soul or conscience but that he is an honest true subject to Her Majesty and her proceedings, though in some things he may have erred in his courses in Ireland."* Some of Essex's friends endeavoured now to conciliate Cecil, who objected that the earl was too violent in his passions, and that there was no constancy in his love : yet he said he could be content not to act as his enemy at this time, though it was admitted that he had good cause for resentment, having heard what Essex had said, and seen what he had intended concerning him.-|- There was no suspicion at this time that there had been anything treasonable in his transactions with Tyrone ; but the queen was greatly displeased that in consequence of his return so many persons had been suffered to leave their charge and follow him to London, the most parts of the gallants having quitted their commands, places, and companies, because they did not choose to stay there after him ; so that the town was said to be full of " all sorts of knights, captains, officers, and soldiers". I No evil design was inferred from this concourse, nor indeed connected with it ; for few indeed if any of these persons were in tlie earl's confidence, and it seems as if at this time he could have been contented with a return to favour. But it was evident that the state of Ireland was rendered more dangerous by this kind of authorised desertion. Essex him- self acted warily and wisely : he refused to see a visitor, unless he came with commands from the queen, declaring that he re- solved to continue a true prisoner ; and he received none of the many packets which came to him from Ireland, but sent them away unopened. " Never," says Rowland Whyte, " could man with more discretion govern his business, than he hath done in this disgrace contrary to the opinion of the world." But * Sydney Papers^ 130. \Ihid., 135. " It is strange," Rowland Whyte says, " how I came to know this much of so secret a matter. If it were not to please you, as God help me, I would shut my ears, and be a stranger to all things, but follow and attend the service of my place ; but I know to whom I write, else would I not write." Xlbid., 131. 170 ENGLISH SEAMEN his partisans were not equally discreet. Pamphlets, which could not but do him hurt, were issued by these rash persons, and suppressed. Sir Christopher St. Laurence, who had been for resorting at once to courses which, though of ordinary occurrence in his own country, would have been murder and treason here, drank at an ordinary to the health of Essex and confusion to his enemies ; and when he was called in question for this before the lord treasurer, he offered to justify his words if any enemy of Essex would call him to account for them. He was dismissed with an admonition : * but such indiscretions counteracted the effect which might otherwise have been produced by his own submissive demeanour. He was now ill both in body and in mind, and one of his letters to the queen touched her. It was in these words : — " My dear, my gracious, and my admired sovereign, is semper eadem. It cannot be but that she will hear the sighs and groans, and read the lamentations and humble petitions of the afflicted. Therefore, O paper, whensoever her eyes vouchsafe to behold thee say that death is the end of all worldly misery, but continual indignation makes misery per- petual ; that present misery is never intolerable to them that are stayed by future hope, but affliction that is unseen is commanded to despair ; that nature, youth, and physic have had many strong encounters ; but if my sovereign will forget me, I have nourished these intentions too long, for in this exile of mine eyes, if mine humble letters find not access, no death can be so speedy as it shall be welcome to me." "j- But her anger was rekindled by a letter from Tyrone to Essex, wherein the rebel expressed his surprise at his sudden departure from Ireland, and said that he could not prevail on his con- federates to agree to such articles of peace as he and the earl had concluded on. Upon this proof that the negotiations on the part of the Irish had been as illusory as they were inconsiderate in Essex (nothing worse being then surmised in his motives), the queen asked if there were not good reason to criminate him } Tyrone, indeed, proclaimed that as the earl, in whom he had put his hopes of life and safety, was under confinement in England, there was a just cause for him to renew the war. Accordingly he let his people loose ; rumours were spread * Sydney Papers, 133. t Birch, 436. Sydney Papers, 132. ROBERT DEVEREUX 171 among them that England would soon be in a state of combus- tion ; and for their further encouragement a cargo of indulgences arrived from the Pope, the extraordinary present of a phcenix plume for Tyrone himself, and a full and plenary remission of all their sins for all who should serve under him or assist him in any way.* He soon proceeded without resistance, and as in triumph, from one end of Ireland to the other. The danger in that ill-fated country had never before been so great. Mountjoy was the man whom the queen thought the fittest person to be sent as lord deputy in so perilous a conjuncture. There were some who fancied that Essex was not likely to obtain his en- largement by any other means so surely or so soon as by the necessity that they supposed would be felt for sending him to resume the command : and it was interpreted as a mark of affection to the earl in Mountjoy that he sought to excuse himself from the charge on the score of ill-health.-|- That objection (being indeed but a pretext) was overruled, and Mountjoy had the honour of concluding this destructive war in that miserable island, by effectually suppressing the rebellion ; and he had the happiness also to take with him, in Fynes Moryson, a faithful follower, who has recorded his difficulties, his actions, and his worth. Essex, meantime, suffered grievously in mind, eating little, sleeping less, and sustaining life only by continual drinking. J It was believed that Cecil did all good and honest offices for him at this time, and was sorry that they availed so little. § If Elizabeth's conduct had sometimes been capricious towards him, it was now unfeeling, for there was no such suspicion of treason as to have raised a thought of proceeding against him on that ground. She permitted a physician to visit him, and * Camden, 575, 581. Moryson, 44. i Sydney Papers, ii., 134. Xlbid,, 135. %Ibid., 143. "I must give this testimony to my Lord Cecil," says Bacon, "that one time in his house in the Savoy he dealt with me directly, and said to me, ' Cousin, I hear it, but I believe it not, that you should do some ill office to my Lord of Essex. For my part, I am merely passive, and not active in this action ; and I follow the queen, and that heavily; and I lead her not. My Lord of Essex is one that in nature I could consent with as well as with any one living. The queen, indeed, is my sovereign, and I am her creature : I may not lose her, and the same course I would wish you to take ' " {Works, vi., 257). 172 ENGLISH SEAMEN allowed him the liberty of the garden ; * but his wife, who was just risen from child-bed, was not suffered to go to him. "I see her go from one to another," says Rowland Whyte, " and small comfort f can she receive by such as are in authority, who will not trouble the queen at her desire. | What is wrought for his good is done by the ladies who have access to the queen. It is marvelled at greatly why Her Majesty's indignation is so extreme towards him ; it may be it is to make the world see her power here is so sovereign, that greatness in any can no longer be than during her pleasure. "§ Bacon continued at this time to render him whatever good offices could warily be attempted. He represented to the queen that this proceeding against Essex ''was a thing towards the people very unplausible," and wished her to intermix some immediate grace from herself, that the world might take knowledge of her princely nature and goodness, lest it should alienate their hearts. He dwelt upon this, knowing that if she once relented so far as to send and visit him, those demonstrations would prove matter of substance and of good. He dealt with the queen in the earl's behalf as he had exhorted the earl himself to deal, seriously, sport- ingly, and every way. Though he professed not to be a poet^ * Raleigh was said to have •' fallen sick upon this, and her majesty very graciously sent to see him" {Sydney Papers, 139). t •' My Lady of Essex is a most sorrowful creature for her husband's captivity. She wears all black of the meanest price, and receives no comfort in anything. She is most desirous to see her lord ; but he is resolved, as they say, to see no creature, but such as come from the queen. . . . My Lord of Essex is very sick ; it is given out he cannot live ; the world do pray that God may move her majesty's kind pity to him " (Rowland Whyte, 23rd November, 1599). " Upon Sunday in the afternoon, my Lady of Essex came to the court all in black, and all she wore was not valued at five pounds. She came to the Countess of Huntingdon's chamber, who came not to her ; but by a second means her desire was made known, that it would please her to move her majesty to give her leave to go see the earl, whom she heard had been the night before in very great extremity. This was all she desired ; and answer was returned that she must attend her majesty's pleasure by the lords of her council, and come no more to court. It was ill taken that she presumed to come, having been denied it long since ; but surely it was the violence of her passion that moved her to it. The earl is extreme ill of the stone, stranguillon, and grinding of the kidneys, which take from him his stomach and rest" (Rowland Whyte, 29th November). X Sydney Papers, 139. %Ibid., 146. ROBERT DEVEREUX 173 he composed a sonnet " directly tending and alluding to draw on her reconcilement " ; and a jest which he employed with better success in his favour was fortunate enough to be re- peated in history. Heyward (afterwards Sir John) had printed this year the first part of the Life and Reign of Henry IV., and dedicated it to Essex. In those uneasy times a book which related the deposition of Richard II. was regarded as a seditious prelude to put into the people's head boldness and faction ; and there was a passage in the dedication which, though harmless in itself, easily admitted of a dangerous construction — magnus siquidem es, et prcesente judicio, et futuri temporis expectatione. The author was committed to prison ; and the queen having an opinion herself that the book had been published with a treasonable intention, asked Bacon if he could not find passages in it that might be drawn within case of treason. " I answered," says Bacon, " for treason surely I found none, but for felony very many. And when Her Majesty hastily asked me, wherein.^ I told her the author had committed very apparent theft ; for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus and translated them into English, and put them into his text." * When Bacon was asked by the queen his opinion of the earl's case, he represented to her that the faults he had com- mitted were what the law might term contempts, because they were the transgression of her particular instructions ; but that the earl might allege in his defence the ampleness of his commission ; the nature of war, which in common cases can- not be tied to strictness of instruction ; the distance of the place, and the interruptions by wind and weather, whereby his communication with her was impeded ; the approval of his actions by the council of State upon the spot ; and his own good intention, " which," says Bacon, " I told her, in some religions was held to be a sufficient dispensation for God's commandments, much more for princes' ". He besought her * Bacon, Works, vi., 259. " And another time," he continues, " when the queen would not be persuaded that it was his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author, and said with great indignation that she would have him racked to produce his author, I replied, 'Nay, madam, he is a doctor; never rack his person, but rack his style. Let him have pen, ink, and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake, by collating the styles, to judge whether he were the author or no.' " 174 ENGLISH SEAMEN not to bring the cause into any public question. "The earl," he said, " was an eloquent and well-spoken man ; and besides his eloquence of nature or art, he had an eloquence of accident which passed them both, which was the pity and bene- volence of his hearers. The effect which this was likely to produce might not be for Her Majesty's honour. He wished therefore, in conclusion, that they might wrap it up privately between themselves, and that she would restore him to his former attendance, with some addition of honour to take away discontent." * At this time seditious libels were dispersed in court, city, and country, imputed by some to the desperate followers of Essex, by others to his crafty enemies : f most probably both parties were at work in the same wicked way, for opposite intents. Elizabeth thought that as it was deemed necessary to notice these in some proclamation from the Star Chamber, the opportunity might be taken to introduce into it something for the satisfaction of the world concerning Essex's confine- ment, without calling upon him to be present. When she propounded this to Bacon, he told her plainly that the people would say the earl was wounded in his back, and that justice had her balance taken from her, which ever consisted of an accusation and a defence. | Many other " quick and sig- nificant terms " he used to the same purpose, telling Elizabeth that in foro famce, the earl was too hard for her ; but patient as the queen generally was of his advice, in this instance she was offended by it, and pursued her own course. A great assembly of privy counsellors and judges was held in the Star Chamber, and a public declaration was made by the council. They began by touching upon the seditious table and ale- house talk which was then rife, and the many dangerous libels which were cast abroad ; and as by the ancient laws of this realm, all persons that go about to sow any such sedition were traitors, all judges, justices, and other officers were straitly charged to make diligent inquiry after such persons as were makers of such libels, and talkers of such seditious speeches, and after all those who kept company with them, * Bacon, vi., 260. t Rowland Whyte (13th December, 1599), says of Raleigh, " the world suspects him about the libels ; how justly I may not judge of, for God knows best all men's doings, and will, when it please him, reveal it ". X Bacon, 262. ROBERT DEVEREUX 175 to the intent that not only they might receive due punish- ment, but that thereby the authors thereof might be the better boulted out. As these libels related to the proceedings of the queen and her council, both concerning Ireland and the earl's commitment, the lords of the council, each in turn, justified the Government by a clear statement of its proceed- ings and of the earl's misconduct. * Essex's condition at this time was truly pitiable. The bodily diseases, which seemed to be rapidly consuming him, were more tolerable than the consciousness of how greatly his guilt exceeded the accusations which were brought against him. This was known only to his few confidants ; to the public he was an object of just commiseration : the loss of the queen's favour, the rigour of his confinement, and the un- certainty when his cause might be finally determined, were enough to break a generous spirit and a haughty heart. His sisters, the Ladies Northumberland and Rich, went " all in black to the queen, humble suitors that he might be removed to a better air, and a more convenient place than the lord keeper's house, where he was somewhat straitly, by reason that the lord keeper's household was great". They had no good success ; and his poor countess, who was not permitted access at court, rose almost every morning at daybreak, to solicit those who were in power to befriend him. Any small favour that the queen was disposed to show, any relenting speech con- cerning him, was matter of mortification and trouble to the adverse party, ... so hateful is the spirit of faction, even when, as in this case, nothing but personal feelings and the hope of personal advancement were concerned, A fortnight after the declaration in the Star Chamber, he received the communion, and sent to the queen his patents of the horse and the ordnance, but the queen sent them back ; that of the marshal he kept, meaning to do so while he lived ; for though his life was in imminent danger, the punctilio on which he had stood with Nottingham still retained its importance in his mind.f Lady Essex had leave now to visit him ; ^' she found him so weak, that when he was removed out of his bed, he was laid on sheets, his own strength being decayed and gone ". When this was made known to Elizabeth, eight physicians of the best experience were assembled by her command ; after * Sydney Papers, 146, 148. f Ibid., 149, 150. 176 ENGLISH SEAMEN consulting together, they sent in writing their opinion to the queen that his recovery was more to be wished than hoped for . . . salus magis optanda quam speranda fuit. These things were required, they said, — that he should have his mind quieted, and that he should change the air, for the sake of rest and recreation. Understanding thus the state he was in, " Her Majesty was very pensive and grieved, and sent Dr. James unto him with some broth. Her message was that he should comfort himself, and that she would, if she might with her honour, go to visit him ; and it was noted," says Rowland Whyte, " that she had water in her eyes when she spoke it. Some comfort it brought to the earl ; but it is thought and feared that it comes very late, for nature is decayed. . . . Her Majesty commanded he should be removed from that chamber he was in, to my lord keeper's own chamber in the same house. But this afternoon a general opinion is held that he cannot live many days." * Elizabeth soon had reason to suspect that the earl's illness was not so dangerous as it was represented to be. One day it was reported that he was dead, and the bell tolled for him ; he was prayed for in the churches, and not in the ordinary manner which the liturgy permits, but from the pulpits. Faction, indeed, was so strongly manifested in the concern shown for him, that many ministers who had thus distinguished themselves were commanded to silence ; *' some, indeed, foolishly forgetting themselves, their doubtful speeches tend- ing to sedition "."I- The Puritans had long looked to him as their patron ; and the more daring spirits among them were supposed to carry their views farther. Some of their divines watched with him ; and when the report was that it had pleased God to restore him to some little amendment, it was believed at court, that though ill, he had not been in any danger. The queen sent him no more messages now, think- ing all to be cunning. '' The abuse," says Rowland Whyte, "must be great, that keeps away pity and mercy, which were wont to be shown to him and all men." His New Year's gift was not accepted ; and when his sister, the Lady Rich, wrote many letters to the queen soliciting leave to see him, and sent many jewels and many presents, her letters were read, and her presents received, but no leave granted. | * Sydney Papers, 151, +/6td., 153-156. Xlhid., 158, 159. ROBERT DEVEREUX 177 He had now, on his farther amendment, the liberty of the gallery and garden allowed him. It was no trifling annoyance to the lord keeper that his house should be made a prison of so long continuance ; and he became greatly * discontented when, after four months, and the earl's complete recovery, there was neither leave given for his removal, nor any means taken for bringing his cause to an end. About this time the earl wrote a remarkable letter to his friend Southampton, apparently upon his departure for Ireland, and designed (there seems reason to suspect) as much for the Puritan party as the person to whom it was addressed. " My lord," it began, "as neither nature nor custom ever made me a man of compli- ment, so now I shall have less will than ever for to use such ceremonies, when I have left with Martha to be soUicitus circa multa, and believe with Mary uniim sufficit. But it is no compliment or ceremony, but a real and necessary duty, that one friend oweth to another in absence, and especially at their leave-taking, when in man's reason many accidents may keep them long divided, or perhaps bar them ever meeting, till they meet in another world." Then, after some pious expressions, and intimations of sincere regard, he says, " These things only I will put your lordship in mind of ; first, that you have nothing that you have not received ; secondly, that you possess them, not as lord over them, but as an accomptant for them ; thirdly, if you employ them to serve the world, or your own worldly delights (which the prince of this world will seek to entertain you with), it is ingratitude, it is in- justice, yea, it is perfidious treachery ". After enforcing these warnings, Essex proceeded in this extraordinary manner : " I know your lordship may say to yourself, and object to me, this is but a vapour of melancholy, and the style of a prisoner ; and that I was far enough from it when I lived in the world as you do now, and may be so again when my fetters be taken from me. I answer, though your lordship should think so, yet cannot I distrust the good- ness of my God, that His mercy will fad me, or His grace forsake me. I have so deeply engaged myself, that I should be one of the most miserable apostates that ever was ; I have so avowed my profession, and called so many from time to time to witness it, and to be watchful over me, that I should * Sydney Papers, 164. 12 178 ENGLISH SEAMEN be the hollowest hypocrite that ever was bom. But though I should perish in my own sin, and draw upon myself my own damnation, should not you take hold of the grace and mercy of God which is offered unto you, and make your profit of my fearful and wretched example ? I was longer a slave and ser- vant to the world and the corruptions of it, than you have been ; and therefore could hardly be drawn from it. I had many calls, and answered some of them slowly, thinking a soft pace fast enough to come to Christ, and myself forward enough when I saw the end of my journey, though I arrived not at it ; and therefore I have been, by God's providence, pulled, haled, and dragged to the marriage feast, as the world hath seen. It was just with God to afflict me in this world, that he might give me joy in another. I had too much knowledge when I per- formed too little obedience, and was therefore to be beaten with double stripes. God grant your lordship may feel the comfort I now enjoy in my unfeigned conversion, but that you never feel the torments I have suffered for my too long delaying it ! I had none but divines to call upon me, to whom I said, if my ambition could have entered into their narrow hearts, they would not have been so humble ; or if my delights had been tasted by them, they would not have been so precise. But you lordship hath one to call upon you, that knows what it is you now enjoy, and what the greatest fruit and end is of all the contentments that this world can afford. Think, therefore, dear earl, that I have staked and bounded all the ways of pleasure to you, and left them as sea marks for you to keep the channel of religious virtue : for, shut your eyes never so long, they must be open at last, and then you must say with me, ' there is no peace to the wicked '. I will make a covenant with my soul, not to suffer my eyes to sleep in the night, nor my thoughts to attend the first business of the day, till I have prayed to my God that your lordship may believe and make profit of this plain but faithful admonition ; and then I know your country and friends shall be happy in you, and yourself successful in all you take in hand, which shall be an unspeakable comfort to " Your Lordship's cousin and true friend, whom no worldly cause can divide from you, "Essex."* * Scott's Somers' Tracts, i., 502-505. This remarkable epistle was published during the civil wars (1643), with this title : " A Precious and ROBERT DEVEREUX 179 He was now sufficiently recovered to walk in the garden at York House, " in a cloth gown, cloth jerkin, cloth hose, cloth stockings, and cloth mittens " ; * affecting, perhaps, a plainness of dress in accord with his profession of repentance and con- version. His mother. Lady Leicester, the wife of Sir Walter Blount, had come to London on purpose to be a petitioner for his liberty ; and such was the rigour used towards those who stood in any danger of the law, or had incurred the sovereign dis- pleasure, that mislike was taken because she and Southampton, and many other of his friends, had been in a house that looked into the garden, and saluted him out of a window. •]• The queen was still undetermined how to proceed with him, retaining some deep remains of old regard ; yet having seen in his conduct much to condemn, and feeling perhaps a vague presageful apprehension of something worse. She inclined to have him brought before the Star Chamber, and had resolved on this course, when he addressed a most submissive letter to her, which Cecil delivered,! and seconded it with all the good offices he could, to remove this resolution. His representations succeeded for the time ; the proceedings were stopped ; and it was supposed that " by little and little the queen would be won to give him the liberty of his own house " ; and, in this expectation, the earl appeared to recover his spirits § as well as his health. But some displeasure was taken because copies of a letter, which the Lady Rich had written to the queen in his behalf, had got abroad ; — an unwise letter, in which Essex's most Divine Letter, from that famous and ever-to be renowned Earl of Essex, (Father to the now Lord General his Excellence,) to the Earl of Southampton, in the latter time of Queen Elizabeth's Reign ". Sir Walter Scott observes, that it was doubtless designed to increase the popularity of the parliamentary general ; and that much was probably expected from its devotional turn of expression. * Sydney Papers, i66. fibid., 171. X " Mr. Secretary hath won much honour and love by it. who in my conscience hath not been so adverse to the earl as was supposed ; it is her majesty that was wounded by the earl's contemptuous courses, as was said, who was not easily to be satisfied " (Rowland Whyte, 14th February, 1599). " The world thinks that there is a reconcilement between the earl and Mr. Secretary, who was held more his enemy than was cause ; for when it came to the very point, none did deal more truly or honourably than he did with the earl, which hath gained him great honour" (Rowland Whyte, i6th February). ^Sydney Papers, i6g. 180 ENGLISH SEAMEN supposed enemies were called "a faction that cared not on whose necks they unjustly built the walls of their own fortunes " ; * and in which the expressions concerning Eliza- beth's beauty must have appeared fulsome to her, when they came from a woman's pen. The Countess of Leicester, being about to return into the country, sent the queen "a most curious fine gown, which was presented by Lady Scudamore. Her Majesty liked it well," but neither accepted, nor refused it : she only answered, '' that things standing as they did, it was not fit for her to desire what she did " ; which was to come to Her Majesty's presence and kiss her hands, upon her now going to her poor home. The hope of the earl's enlarge- ment seemed at this time lost ; and he was *' much troubled at the indiscretion of his friends and servants," to whose rash speeches he imputed this renewed displeasure. f This cloud also passed over; but it did not leave a clear sky. He was permitted to remove to his own house ; but its inmates were previously required to leave it, except such as "ordinarily must attend him for his diet and chamber" : and he was to remain there under the custody of Sir Richard Berkeley, who had all the keys of the house, and one of his own servants for a porter. Sir Richard slept in the next chamber to him. The countess was allowed to visit him by day, and none else admitted to speak with him, unless by the queen's special leave, f This, however, seemed like the dawn of returning favour, and he wrote in characteristic language to express his gratitude : — "Vouchsafe, most dear and most admired sovereign, to receive this humblest acknowledgment of your majesty's most faithful vassal. Your majesty's gracious message stayed me from death, when I gasped for life. Your princely and com- passionate increasing of my liberty hath enabled me to wrestle with my many infirmities, which else, long ere this, had made an end to me. And now this further degree of goodness, in favourably removing me to mine own house, doth sound in mine ears as if your majesty spake these words : — Die not, Essex ; for though I punish thine offences, and humble thee for thy good, yet I mil one day be served again by thee. And my pros- trate soul makes this answer : / hope for that blessed day ! All * Birch, 442. i Sydney Papers, 174-176. Xlbid., 186. ROBERT DEVEREUX 181 my afflictions of body or mind are humbly, patiently, and cheerfully borne by " Your majesty's humblest vassal, "Essex."* His affairs had now ceased to be the talk of the court: there, indeed, to be out of sight was to be out of mind ; but not with the queen and her counsellors. A little more liberty in his own house was given him ; he " walked often upon the open leads, and in the garden, with his wife ; now he, now she," says Rowland Whyte, "reading one to the other". He had leave to celebrate Easter by himself at his own house ; and this seems to have been thought an indulgence ! The countess was a humble^,' suitor to Her Majesty, through the lords, that his keeper might be removed, and that she might be allowed to live with her husband ; as her mother. Lady Walsingham, with whom she then resided, was about to leave London. " To see her clad as she was, was a pitiful spectacle." This petition was not granted ; and, not venturing to take a lodging near Essex House, as she had purposed, lest the queen might take offence at it, the countess went with her mother to Bamelms.j- Essex's rash friends continued to minister fresh offence to the queen : they now printed the Lady Rich's letter, which, when circulated in manuscript, had been so greatly resented ; and they printed also an apology which he had written two years before, in the form of a letter to Sir Anthony Bacon, " against those which falsely and maliciously took him to be the only hindrance of the peace and quiet of his country ". It was an argument against negotiating a peace with Spain, chiefly founded upon the insincerity of the Spanish court. The publication of a State paper, as this might be deemed, was a heinous offence : two persons were committed to close prison for it ; and Essex, being apprehensive of the consequences to himself, called upon the Archbishop of Canterbury and the stationers' company to suppress it, as having been published without his procurement or know- ledge.l Knowing that the queen's anger had been thus rekindled, and now by no new fault on his part, he wrote to her another • Birch, 443, 444. f Sydney Papers, 185-193. Xlbid., 194. Birch, ^^^. 182 ENGLISH SEAMEN of those letters, in which his character appears perhaps more truly than in his public conduct ; because in public life he was surrounded always by advisers and flatterers, and in these he had no one to consult with. "Before," said he, '^all letters written with this hand be banished, or he that sends this enjoin himself eternal silence, be pleased, I humbly be- seech your majesty, to read over these few lines. At sundry times, and by several messengers, I received these words as your majesty's own ; — that you meant to correct, but not to ruin. Since which time, when I languished in four months' sickness, forfeited almost all that I was able to engage, felt the very pangs of death upon me, and saw that poor reputation, whatsoever it was, that I had heretofore enjoyed, not suffered to die with me, but buried, and I alive ; — I yet kissed your majesty's fair correcting hand, and was confident in your royal words. For, I said unto myself, between my ruin and my sovereign's favour there is no mean ; and if she bestow favour again, she gives with it all things that in this world I either need or desire. But now the length of troubles, and the continuance, or rather the increase, of your majesty's indigna- tion, hath made all men so afraid of me, as mine own state is not only ruined, but my kind friends and faithful servants are like to die in prison, because I cannot help myself with mine own. Now I do not only feel the intolerable weight of your majesty's indignation, and am subject to their wicked information, that first envied me for my happiness in your favour, and now hate me out of custom ; but, as if I were thrown into a corner like a dead carcass, I am gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest creatures upon earth. The tavern-haunter speaks of me what he lists. Already they print me, and make me speak to the world ; and shortly they will play me, in what forms they list, upon the stage. The least of these is a thousand times worse than death. But this is not the worst of my destiny ; for your majesty, that hath mercy for all the world but me, that hath protected from scorn and infamy all to whom you once vowed favour but Essex, and never repented you of any gracious assurance you had given till now, — your majesty, I say, hath now, in this eighth month of my close imprisonment (as if you thought my infirmities, beggary, and infamy, too little punishment for me), rejected my letters, — refused to hear of me, which to traitors you never did. What therefore remaineth for me ? Only this : to beseech ROBERT DEVEREUX 183 your majesty, on the knees of my heart, to conclude my punishment with misery and ray life together ; that I may go to my Saviour, who hath paid himself a ransom for me, and whom, methinks, I still hear, calling me out of this unkind world, in which I have lived too long, and once thought myself too happy. " From your majesty's humblest servant, "Essex."* This letter was well received. The queen " used good and gracious speeches of him " ; saying that her purpose was to make him know himself, and his duty to her ; and that she would again use his services. f She sent him also a message of encouragement, couched in figurative language ; to which he thus replied : — " Four whole days have I meditated, most dear and most admired sovereign, on these words, — that there are two kinds of angels . . . the one good, the other evil ; and that your majesty wisheth your servant to be accompanied with the good. And thus my meditation teacheth me to understand mine oracle. She that may as easily make me happy as wish me happy, doth vouchsafe to wish me threefold happiness ; that is, angels that have three excellent offices, who may be good to me in all ; as good messengers, they may bring good tidings ; as good watchmen, they may secure their charge ; and as good executioners, they may exercise me with nothing but for my good. Other offices or virtues than these, (for anything that I can conceive) angels have not ; and other influence than from your majesty, no angel that will be good unto me in this world can give. For if your majesty send me gracious comforts, though all the world besides should ring alarums and threatenings in mine ears, I should not weigh them. While your majesty and grace and goodness watcheth over me, no earthly power shall make me feel harm, nor apprehend danger. Since your majesty was pleased to say, that what you did was ad correctionem, non ad ruinatn, and that you stayed all proceedings that might disable me from your service hereafter, I have been confident that your bright, powerful, and gracious beams will break forth, and disperse all the clouds that now overshadow "Your majesty's humblest vassal, "Essex." I * Birch, 444, 445. f Sydney Papers, 196. I Birch, 445. 184 ENGLISH SEAMEN Though much of the rigour which had hitherto been used in these proceedings must now appear tyrannical, seeing that no suspicion was then entertained of the earl's treason, Eliza- beth's intention was to show him all the favour which could consist with the maintenance of her own authority, and with that appearance of justice which it was her conscientious desire that all the proceedings of her Government should carry with them to the people. In this she might have succeeded, if Essex had been guilty, as she believed, of nothing more than errors in judgment ; and if his partisans had not, either from rash zeal or some sinister purpose, frustrated her inten- tion. Essex often complained of his enemies ; but it was by his friends that he was undone. Their complaints, that he had not been heard in his own defence, made the declaration of the council fail to produce its designed effect ; and the queen, telling Bacon that she had found his words true, for this " had rather kindled factious bruits than quenched them," said she was determined now, for the satisfaction of the world, to proceed against him in the Star Chamber, by an infor- mation ore tenus, and have him brought to his answer : yet she repeated the assurance which she had frequently made, that whatsoever she did to him should be ad castigationem, et non ad destructionem. In hopes utterly to divert her. Bacon made answer, " Madam, if you will have me speak to you in this argument, I must speak to you as Friar Bacon's head spake, that said first. Time is, and then Time was, and Time will never be. For certainly it is now far too late ; the matter is cold, and hath taken too much wind." The reply seemed to offend her ; and when some weeks had elapsed, and she spake again to Bacon, in the same mind, he, "seeing," he says, "no other remedy," said to her slightly, "Why, madam, if you will needs have a proceeding, you were best have it in some such sort as Ovid spake of his mistress : ' est aliquid luce patente minus ' ; — make a council- table matter of it, and there an end ".* And though this Silso was taken in ill part, he thought it helped to divert the course of proceeding by information in the Star Chamber, which could only have ended in a ruinous sentence. When it was determined what course should be taken, one of the council told Bacon that Her Majesty was not yet re- * Bacon, vi., 261-263. ROBERT DEVEREUX 185 solved whether she would have him forborne in the business or not. He, who had no easy course to steer, and suspected crooked intentions when there were few whose dealings were straightforward, thought there was some stratagem in this inti- mation, arising from some particular emulation. " Wherefore," says he, " I writ to her two or three words of compliment, signi- fying to Her Majesty, that if she would be pleased to spare me in my Lord of Essex's cause, out of the consideration she took of my obligation towards him, I should reckon it for one of her greatest favours : but otherwise, desiring Her Majesty to think that I knew the degrees of duties ; and that no par- ticular obligation whatsoever to any subject could supplant or weaken that entireness of duty that I did owe and bear to her and her service." This, he says, was "a respect no man that had his wits could have omitted ; but, nevertheless, I had a farther reach in it. For I judged that day's work would be a full period of any bitterness or harshness between the queen and my lord ; and therefore, if I declared myself fully accord- ing to her mind at that time, which could not do my lord any manner of prejudice, I should keep my credit with her ever after, whereby to do my lord service." * The queen's council were ere long sent for ; and all having their parts in the business according to their pleasure, it was allotted to Bacon that he should set forth the earl's undutiful carriage in giving countenance to Hayward's History of Henry IF., which was termed a seditious pamphlet. Upon this, he represented "that it was an old matter, and had no manner of coherence with the rest of the charge, being matters of Ire- land : and that, having been wronged by reports already, this would expose him to them still more ; for it would be said that he gave as evidence his own tale ". It was answered with good show, that, considering his obligations to Essex, that part was thought fittest for him, which did least hurt ; for whereas all the rest was matter of charge and accusation, this only was matter of caveat and admonition. " Wherewith," says Bacon, "though I was in mine own mind little satisfied, because I knew well a man were better to be charged with some faults, than admonished of some others, yet the conclusion bending upon the queen's pleasure directly, volens nolens I could not avoid that part that was laid upon me."f * Bacon, vi., 264, 265. f Ibid., 265. 186 ENGLISH SEAMEN Accordingly, eighteen commissioners assembled at York House to hear this cause. They were, Archbishop Whitgift, under whose care he had been placed at Cambridge ; the lords keeper, treasurer, and admiral ; the Earls of Worcester, Shrews- bury, Cumberland, Huntingdon, and Derby ; the Lord Zouch ; Sir William KnoUys, comptroller of the household ; Master Secretary Cecil ; Sir John Fortescue ; the two chief justices, Popham and Anderson ; the Lord Chief Baron Periam ; and the justices Gawdy and Walmesley. At eight in the morning they were assembled, ''all at a long table, in chairs " ; and at the earl's coming in, " none of them stirred cap, nor gave any kind of courtesy ". He knelt at the upper end of the table, and a good while without any cushion ; till at length the archbishop moved the lord treasurer, and they jointly the lord keeper and lord admiral, who sat opposite them, and then he was permitted a cushion. The lord keeper opened the cause of their meeting, and then called upon the law officers to inform against the earl. Yelverton began, with a short and prefatory speech, touching upon the queen s gracious dealings, in discharging 10,000/. of his debts before he went for Ireland, and giving him almost as much more to buy horses and provide himself ; her princely provision for the war ; the consump- tion of the army under his command; the waste of treasure to an enormous amount ; his contempt and disobedience of her commands ; and her bounty in not proceeding against him in a court of justice, but only in this private sort by way of mercy and favour.* The attorney-general Coke followed. His speech, which contained the body and substance of the accusation, was sharp and stinging ; — charging him with many faults of contempt and disobedience ; and shrewdly inferring a dangerous dis- position and purpose, which he aggravated to the full. Dividing his discourse into three parts, — quomodo ingressus, quomodo progressus, quomodo regressus, — he concluded that the ingress had been proud and ambitious, the progress disobedient and contemptuous, the regress notorious and dangerous. It seemed as if that sagacious lawyer divined the treason of which there was no proof. The earl's conference with Tyrone, he said, was aggravated, in that it was an equal and secret conference, dishonourable to Her Majesty for him that sustained her royal * Fynes Moryson, 69. Birch, 447, 448. ROBERT DEVEREUX 187 person to confer in equal sort with the basest and vilest traitor that ever lived ; suspicious also, in that it was private, no man suffered to approach, but especially no Englishman ; and he added that, before this parley, a messenger went secretly from the earl's camp to the traitor, if not sent by the earl, at least by his connivance, or by that of the marshal, whom the earl did not punish. The end of the conference was most shameful : that a traitor should prescribe conditions to his sovereign, — abominable and odious conditions, — a public toleration of idolatrous reUgion, pardon for himself and all the traitors in Ireland, and full restitution of lands and possessions to all the sort of them. " This was the sum of the accusation ; every part interlaced with most sharp and bitter rhetorical amplifications." For the punishment, he was fain, he said, to seek far for a precedent gentle enough, — that of William of Britten, Earl of Richmond, who, refusing to come home out of France upon the king's letter, was adjudged to lose all his goods, lands, and chattels, and to endure perpetual im- prisonment. "The earl," said Master Attorney, "exclaimeth in his letter, ' tempora, mores ! ' Let me also say with the orator concerning him, Hoec regina intelligit, hcec senatus videt, hie lamen vivit." The solicitor-general Fleming dwelt upon the unhappy success which had ensued in Ireland, where Tyrone had grown stronger and more insolent than ever, vaunting that he was the upholder of the Romish faith and religion ; and there were some even who gave out that he would follow Essex to England, — little to England's good. It was now Bacon's turn. He began by saying he hoped Essex himself, and all who heard him, would consider, that the particular bond of duty which he then did, and ever would, acknowledge to owe unto the earl, was now to be sequestered and laid aside. He then extolled the queen's singular grace, in that, upon the earl's humble suit, she was content not to prosecute him in her court of justice the Star Chamber, but, according to his own desire, to remove that cup from him (these were his own words), and suffer his cause to be heard inter privatos parieies, by way of mercy and favour only, where no manner of dis- loyalty was laid to his charge. He dwelt upon the earl's letter to the lord keeper, written very boldly and presumptuously, in derogation of Her Majesty, and published by the earl's own friends ; and he concluded with the matter of Dr. Hay- 188 ENGLISH SEAMEN ward's book, ... a dangerous pamphlet, he called it, con- cerning the first years of Henry IV.'s reign, but, indeed, the end of Richard II. 's ; — "and who was thought fit to be the patron of that book, but my Lord of Essex, who, after it had been out a week, wrote a cold, formal letter to my Lord of Canterbury, to call it in again, . . . knowing, belike, that forbidden things are most sought after".* The speech is said to have been very eloquent. Bacon knew how certainly he should incur the note of ingratitude. "The part which was laid on me," says he, ''if in the delivery I did handle not tenderly (though no man did in so clear terms clear my lord from all disloyalty as I did), that must be ascribed to the superior duty I did owe to the queen's fame and honour in a public proceeding ; and partly to the intention I had to uphold myself in credit and strength with the queen, the better to be able to do my lord good offices afterwards." "|- The special points of accusation were proved by the earl's own letters, by some from the queen and council, and others from the Earl of Ormond and the council in Ireland, — which were all openly read by tiie clerk. Essex listened to all with perfect self-command. He never offered to leave kneeling, till the archbishop, when the queen's Serjeant had ended his speech, moved that he might stand, and afterwards that he might lean, and at length that a stool might be given him. Such indulgence was, indeed, needed ; for the proceedings began at nine in the morning, and con- tinued without intermission till eight in the evening. "I hear," says Rowland Whyte, "it was a most pitiful and lamentable sight, to see him that was the minion of Fortune, now unworthy of the least honour. Many that were present burst out in tears at his fall to such misery." J Nevertheless, the lords did all admire at his discretion and carriage ; who never was moved at any speech spoken against him, but with patience heard all that was said. Being now to speak for himself, he knelt down, and began by saying, that ever since it pleased Her Gracious Majesty to change the intended course of proceeding in the Star Chamber, and to remove that cup from him, he had laid aside all thought of justifying him- *Fynes Moryson, 69-71. f Bacon, vi,, 266, X Sydney Papers, 200, ROBERT DEVEREUX 189 self in any of his actions, and never to make any contestation with his sovereign. He had made a divorce betwixt himself and the world, if God and his sovereign would give him leave to hold it : his inward sorrow for the great offence against Her Majesty was more than any outward cross or affliction that could possibly befall him. He would never excuse himself, neither d toto nor a tanto, from whatsoever crimes of error, negligence, or inconsiderate rashness, his youth, folly, or manifold infirmities might lead him into ; only he must ever profess a loyal and unspotted heart, an unfeigned affection, and desire ever to do Her Majesty the best service he could ; which rather than he would lose, he would, if Christianity and charity did permit, first tear his heart out of his breast with his own hands. But this being always preserved un- touched, he was willing to confess whatsoever errors and faults it pleased Her Majesty to impute to him. This " first part of his speech drew tears from many of the hearers ; for it was uttered with great passion, and the words excellently ordered ; and it might plainly appear that he had intended * to speak no more for himself. But being touched (as it seemed) with the over-sharp speeches of his accusers, he humbly craved that, whereas he had perceived many rhetorical inferences and insinuations given out by his accusers, which might argue a disloyal, malicious, wicked, and corrupt affection in him, they would give him leave, not in any sort to excuse himself, but only, by way of explanation, to lay down unto them those false guides, which had misled him into all his errors." And then he began to answer Coke's speech from point to point. \ Before he had waded through half, the lord keeper interrupted him, saying, thnt all extenu- ating of his offence was but the extenuating of Her Majesty's mercy in pardoning ; they cleared him from all suspicion of disloyalty, and therefore he would do well to spare the rest * " He came, however, prepared to enter upon a defence, for Rowland Whyte says he held a bundle of papers in his hand, which sometimes he laid in his hat, that was upon the ground by him " {Sydney Papers, 199). t One part of his speech would have been reprehensible enough, even if Essex had been as innocent of disloyalty as he was then supposed to be. ♦' The council in Ireland," he said, " had dealt most falsely in excusing themselves to charge him the deeper ; and it seemeth that God, in his just revenge, hath overtaken two of them already, — the Earl of Ormond by blindness, and Sir Warham St. Leger by violent death" (Fynes Moryson, 72). 190 ENGLISH SEAMEN of his speech, and save time, and commit himself to Her Majesty's mercy. And when the earl replied, that he sought only to clear himself from a malicious, corrupt affection ; the lord keeper said he was not charged with it ; and if he intended to persuade them that he had disobeyed in deed, but not with a purpose of disobeying, it was frivolous and absurd. The lord treasurer then spoke, and clearing the earl from any suspicion of disloyalty, " did very soundly control divers of his other excuses". Cecil came next, "by reason of his place," before his turn. He too cleared him from disloyalty ; but fully satisfied the auditors that in all his Irish proceedings the earl did nothing else but make, as it were, circles of errors, which were all bound up in the unhappy knot of his disobedient return. He showed more courtesy than any other of the speakers, did everywhere justice to the accused, and gave him free liberty to interrupt him at any part of his speech. Of this liberty Essex availed himself only twice, and then by reason of some questions moved by the archbishop and the lord admiral. Whitgift's question was concerning the tolera- tion of religion, which it was said had been yielded to Tyrone. " The earl thanked him for moving that doubt, and protested that it was a thing, which had been mentioned to him indeed, but to which he had never yielded ; nor had that traitor stood upon it when he said to him plainly, ' Hang thee ! thou carest for religion as much as my horse'." Cecil also declared that the earl had never " yielded to that foul condition"; though by Tyrone's after- vaunting, it might have some show of proba- bility. The lord admiral's question was one which led him to say he had returned from Ireland upon a false ground of hope, that he might be pardoned as the Earl of Leicester had been, in a like case, when he returned from the Low Countries con- trary to Her Majesty's express letter: "then I thought with myself," quoth the earl, "if Leicester was pardoned, whose end was only to save himself^ why might not Essex, whose end was to save a kingdom } " But Cecil replied to this, — " that upon his knowledge, no letter had ever passed from the queen to Leicester, forbidding him to return ".* *Fynes Moryson, 71-73. "Judge Walmesley his speech was more blunt than bitter. ' Prisoners at our bars,' said he, ' are more graceless ; they will not confess their faults.' He compared my lord's coming home to a shepherd that left his flock to the keeping of his dog." ROBERT DEVEREUX 191 In conclusion, the earl protested, that all he sought for was to be held a true and loyal subject ; he yielded himself wholly to Her Majesty's mercy and favour ; and was ready to offer up his poor carcass, he would not say to do (for, alas, he had no faculties !) but to suffer whatsoever she should inflict upon him ; and so he requested them all to make a just, honourable, and favourable report of his disorded speeches, which had fallen from him in such sort, as his aching head, and body weakened with sickness, would give him leave. They then proceeded to the censure ; the lord keeper, beginning with a "good, powerful, and eloquent speech, said that by justice and mercy the throne is established : mercy. Her Majesty had reserved to herself; but, for the satisfying of her justice, she had appointed them to inquire into the faults of contempts and disobedience laid unto the earl ; and to censure him ac- cordingly. With her mercy they had nothing to do : God was to work it in her princely breast." Then going through the course of the proceedings in Ireland, "he amplified to the uttermost" all the earl's errors, that Her Majesty's mercy might appear the more. Touching the precedent which the earl had adduced for his unlicensed return, the lord keeper said, — " Example is better than imitation ; he that doth well of his own head, doth best ; and he that doth well by imita- tion, doth commendably in a less degree : but in bad things the proportion is otherwise ; the example being naught, the imitation is worse. Therefore, if my Lord of Leicester did evil in coming over contrary to the queen's commandment, my Lord of Essex did worse in imitating him, and is so much the more to be punished." Coming at last to the censure, "If," quoth he, "this cause had been heard in the Star Chamber, my sentence must have been so great a fine as ever was set upon any man's head in that court ; and perpetual imprisonment in that place which belongeth to a man of his quality, . . . that is, the Tower: but now that we are in another place, and in a course of fevour, my censure is, that he is not to execute the office of a counsellor, nor to hold himself for a counsellor of State, nor to execute the office of Earl Marshal of England, nor of the master of the ordnance ; and to return to his own house, there to continue a prisoner as before, till it shall please Her Majesty to release both this and all the rest ". The others, each in order, accorded to this censure — for so 192 ENGLISH SEAMEN they called it, and not a sentence ; yet some of the noblemen were inclined to excuse him. The Earl of Worcester cited these verses of Ovid : — " Scilicet a Superis etiam fortuna luenda est, Nee veniam, laeso numine, casus habet." The Earl of Cumberland said, " if he thought this censure should stand, he would crave longer time ; for it seemed to him somewhat hard and heavy " ; intimating how easily a general commander might incur the like : " but, in confidence," said he, " of Her Majesty's mercy, I agree with the rest ". The Lord Lovel would give no other censure that what he believed the earl would lay upon himself, namely, that he would re- strain himself from executing his offices, and keep in his house, till Her Majesty should release him. Of this they all seemed by their speeches to conceive sure hope.* Essex himself, it is said, was reasonably cheerful, only his body seemed weak and distempered with sickness ; and now and then he showed most manifest tokens of sorrow for his offence to Her Majesty, by tears in his eyes. He besought their honours to be a mean unto Her Majesty for grace and mercy, seeing there appeared in his offences no disloyalty towards Her Highness, but ignor- ance and indiscretion in himself f The queen was " very much quieted and satisfied to see that the lords of her council, her nobility, and the grave judges of the land held him worthy of far more punishment than had been inflicted". Though it was uncertain what course she would pursue, many expected that he would now be restored to favour, because the queen had expressly commanded that he should not be suspended from his mastership of the horse J (as if she intended to use his service again) ; and also because she had ordered that no record should be made of the pro- ceedings. On the day following. Bacon attended Her Majesty; "and knowing, as I supposed at least," he says, "how the queen was to be used, I thought that to make her conceive the matter went well then, was the way to make her leave off there ; and I remember well I said to her, ' You have now, madam, obtained victory over two things, which the greatest princes in the world cannot at their wills subdue : the one is — over fame ; the other is — over a great mind. For * Fynes Moryson, 74. f Sydney Papers, 200. % Camden, 599. ROBERT DEVEREUX 19S surely, the world is now, I hope, reasonably well satisfied ; and for my lord, he did show that humiliation towards your majesty, as I am persuaded he was never in his lifetime more fit for your majesty's favour than he is now. Therefore, if your majesty will not mar it by lingering, but give over at the best, and now you have made so good a full point, receive him again with tenderness, I shall then think that all that is past is for the best." Elizabeth took "exceeding great content- ment " at this ; and reminded Bacon how she had ever said that her proceedings should be ad reparationem, and not ad ruinam ; and she willed him to set down in writing all that had passed that day. This he did, and read it to her in two several afternoons; '^and when," said he, "I came to that part that set forth my lord's own answer, which was my principal care, I do well bear in mind that she was extra- ordinarily moved with it, in kindness and relenting towards my lord ; and told me afterwards, speaking how well 1 had expressed my lord's part, that she perceived old love would not easily be forgotten ; whereunto I answered suddenly, that I hoped she meant that by herself". * He advised her not to let the narrative which he had prepared at her command ^o further ; seeing that by her express direction no record had been taken ; and it would be inconsistent to do that popularly, which she could not allow to be done judicially. The queen followed this council, and was undoubtedly inclined to restore the earl to favour : but impediments con- tinually appeared, caused either by his own incaution, or the mischievous practices of his partisans, by whom, and not by his enemies, his ruin was brought on. 'The ablest and most inveterate of these (as, indeed, he was the one who had received most provocation) had never power or influence enough to inflict any lasting injury upon a person who had an equal hold upon the favour of the queen and of the people. Essex had formed a juster opinion of Raleigh's enmity, than he did of Bacon's desire to serve him. A letter has been pre- served, written by Sir Walter to Cecil about this time. " Sir," it began, " I am not wise enough to give you advice ; but if you take it for a good counsel to relent towards this tyrant, you will repent it, when it shall be too late. His malice is fixt, and will not evaporate by any of your mild courses ; for * Bacon's Works, vi., 266. 13 194 ENGLISH SEAMEN he will ascribe the alteration to Her Majesty's pusillanimity, and not to your good nature, knowing that you work but upon her humour, and not out of any love towards him. The less you make him, the less he shall be able to harm you and yours ; and if Her Majesty's favour fail him, he will again decline to a common person. For after revenges, fear them not. For your own father that was esteemed to be the con- triver of Norfolk's ruin, yet his son followeth your father's son, and loveth him. Humours of men succeed not, but grow by occasions and accidents of time and power. Somerset made no revenge on the Duke of Northumberland's heirs ; Nor- thumberland that now is, thinks not of Hatton's issue ; Kello- way lives, that murdered the brother of Horsey, and Horsey let him go by all his lifetime. I could name a thousand of those ; and, therefore, after fears are but prophecies, or rather conjectures from causes remote. Look to the present, and you do wisely. His son shall be the youngest Earl of Eng- land but one ; and if his father be now kept down. Will Cecil shall be able to keep as many men at his heels as he, and more too. He may also match in a better house than his, and so that fear is not worth the fearing. Bnt if the father continue, he will be able to break the branches, and pull up the tree, root and all. Lose not your advantage ; if you do, I rede your destiny. — Let the queen hold Bothwell while she hath him ; he will ever be the canker of her estate and safety. Princes are lost by security, and preserved by prevention. I have seen the last of her good days, and all ours, after his liberty." * On the first Star Chamber day, the lord keeper, in his usual speech to the country gentlemen, touched upon Essex's affair, who had acknowledged his errors, he said, and was sorry for them ; yet some wicked persons intermeddled by libelling to find fault with Her Majesty's doings : and against such persons a proclamation was published, that they might be severely punished according to the laws, f The displeasure which had justly been taken at making so many knights during his unfortunate command in Ireland, was now in- cidentally aggravated. The queen had signed a warrant for a proclamation degrading them from a dignity which had been conferred on them contrary to her commands, and for- * Biog. Brit.f v., 151. i Sydney Papers, 202. ROBERT DEVEREUX 195 bidding the ancient gentlemen of the kingdom to give them place. The proclamation was stayed by Cecil's " special care and credit " ; but when the queen sent to Essex for her own letter wherein she had enjoined him not to repeat the fault which he had committed at Cadiz, he returned for answer, that he had lost or mislaid it, for it could not be found. This was said in very submissive terms ; but EUzabeth was hurt that so little care should be taken of her letters ; and her dis- pleasure was manifested in revoking an order which she had given for the removal of his keeper. * It was manifested also in a manner characteristic of the woman, and on an occasion characteristic of the times. The queen honoured the marriage of the Lord Herbert and Mrs. Anne Russel with her presence : a memorable mask was pre- pared for the nuptials, and a strange newly invented dance. After supper, eight ladies came in their characters as masquers, apparelled alike, " in a skirt of cloth of silver, a rich waist- coat wrought with silks and gold and silver, a mantle of carnation taffeta cast under the arm, and their hair loose about the shoulders, curiously knotted and interlaced ". They danced to Apollo's music; and, in "a fine speech, mention was made of a ninth, much to her honour and praise ". "Dehcate it was," says Rowland Whyte, "to see eight ladies so prettily and richly attired." After they had done all their own ceremonies, they chose eight other ladies to dance the measures ; and the lady who led the mask went to the queen, and wooed her to dance. Her Majesty asked what she was, "Affection," was the reply. "Affection!" said the queen; "Affection is false !" f Yet Her Majesty rose and danced. She was then in the sixty-seventh year of her age. Elizabeth's conduct concerning Essex is perfectly intelligible, without casting upon her the imputation of a weakness which would have been not less preposterous at her age, than unbe- coming in her station. She was ill satisfied with herself for having lavished her bounty on one who had shown himself neither worthy of it, nor grateful. The keeper, however, was removed in the course of the month. Essex meantime made a show of extraordinary humility ; protesting, both in his discourse and letters, that he had renounced the vanities of the world ; had quenched * Sydney Papers, 204. flbid., 201-203. 196 ENGLISH SEAMEN the burning heat of his ambition with tears flowing from his heart, and desired nothing more than that the queen would let her servant depart in peace : * these were his own words. About two months after he was sent for to York House, where the lord keeper, the lord treasurer, and Cecil, who had sincerely endeavoured to serve him throughout these proceedings, signi- fied to him that he was at liberty : but he was admonished to make himself and his own discretion his keeper ; and neither to come to court, nor near the queen's person. He besought them to be his mean to Her Majesty, that he might once come to her presence and kiss her hands, for then he could with some contentment betake himself to his solitary life.-j* Of this no hope was held out ; and he was fain to express his thanks by the Lord Henry Howard. They were couched in language which, as it was not deemed abject then, might pass uncensured now, if it could be supposed to be sincere. The Lord Henry Howard was charged to say for him, " that he kissed her royal hand, and the rod which had corrected, not ruined him ; but he could never be possessed of his wonted joy till he beheld again those benign looks of hers, which had been his star to direct and guide him, and by the conduct whereof he sailed most prosperously whilst he held his course in a due latitude. But he was now determined to repent him of his fault, and to say with Nebuchadnezzar, ' Let my dwell- ing be with the beasts of the field, to eat grass as an ox, and to be wet with the dew of heaven, till it shall please the queen to restore my understanding unto me'." She is said to have rejoiced at these expressions, and to have returned this answer : — '' Would God his deeds may be answerable to his words! He hath a long time tried my patience, and I must have some time to make proof of his humility. My father would never have endured such perverseness. But I will not look back, lest, with Lot's wife, I be turned into a pillar of salt. All is not gold that glisteneth. If this could be brought to pass by the furnace, I should be more favour- able to the profession of alchemy." % While Bacon endeavoured thus to reconcile the queen to Essex, he had to clear himself from the imputation of having behaved ungratefully toward the earl, by appearing against him in his official capacity. That imputation, if it were de- ^ Camden, 6oi. i Sydney Papers, 213. J Camden, 602. ROBERT DEVEREUX 197 served, would fix upon Bacon a deeper stain than the mis- demeanours for which he was afterwards disgraced ; but though he found it necessary to apologise for himself, it was without feeling any cause for self-reproach. He addressed him at this juncture in a manner which showed an equal confidence in his own upright intentions, and in the earl's generosity and sense of justice. " My Lord, " No man can expound my doings better than your lordship, which makes me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation of bonus civis, and bonus vir ; and that though I love some things better, I confess, than I love your lordship, yet I love few persons better, both for gratitude's sake, and for your virtues, which cannot hurt but by accident : of which my good affection it may please your lordship to assure yourself, and of all the true effects and offices I can yield. For as I was ever sorry your lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus's fortune ; so, for the growing up of your own feathers, be they estridge's or other kind, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axle-tree whereon I have turned, and shall turn ; which having already signified to you by some near mean, having so fit a messenger for mine own letters, I thought good also to redouble by writing. And so I commend you to God's protection." The earl returned this answer : — "Mr. Bacon, "I can neither expound nor censure your late actions, being ignorant of all of them save one, and liaving directed my sight inward only to examine myself. You do pray me to believe that you only aspire to the conscience and commendation of bonus civis and bonus vir ; and I do faithfully assure you, that while that is your ambition (though your course be active, and mind contemplative), yet we shall both convenire in eodem tertio, and convenire inter nos ipsos. Your profession of affection, and offer af good offices, are welcome to me. For answer to them I will say but this, — that you have believed that I have been kind to you ; and you may believe that I cannot be other, either upon humour or mine own 198 ENGLISH SEAMEN election. I am a stranger to all poetical conceits, or else I would say somewhat of your poetical example : but this I must say, — that I never flew with other wings than desire to merit, and confidence in, my sovereign's favour; and when one of these wings failed me, I would light nowhere but at my sovereign's feet, though she suffered me to be bruised with my fall. And till Her Majesty, that knows I was never a bird of prey, finds it to agree with her will and her service, that my wings should be imped again, I have committed myself to the mue. No power but my God's and my sovereign's can alter this resolution of " Your retired friend, " Essex." * Unhappily for himself and many others, Essex had received Henry Cuffe into his service as secretary ; a man of great abilities, considerable learning, and inordinate ambition. He was of a good family in Somersetshire, which has been about two centuries extinct. Having obtained a fellowship at Trinity College, Oxford, he was expelled from it for some indiscretion, which left so little impeachment upon his character, that by Sir Henry Savile's means he was elected at Merton, upon the first occasion that offered after Sir Henry's appointment to the wardenship. Savile, Camden, and Owen the epigrammatist, were at that time his intimate friends ; and he held the Greek professorship, when in evil hour he forsook his academical pursuits, to attach himself to Essex, whom he accompanied in the Cadiz expedition, and who made him his secretary when he went to Ireland. Cuffe had always inclined rather to a busy than a retired life ; and held the true worldling's opinion, that learning was of little service to any man, if it did not render him fitter for being employed in matters of importance ; a way of thinking which recommended him to Essex. He is represented as "a man of secret ambitious ends of his own, and of proportionate counsels, smothered under the habit of a scholar, and slubbered over with a certain rude and clownish fashion, that had the semblance of integrity ".•]- Cuffe, while the proceedings against the earl were pending, always advised him not to acknowledge that he had done wrong ; but re- solutely to stand upon his honour, and justify himself. J He * Birch, 457. t Sir Henry Wotton, 180. t Camden, 602. ROBERT DEVEREUX 199 is said also to have reproached him for his submission, as low-spirited and faint-hearted ; and contemptuously to have reflected upon those to whom Essex had listened. The earl musing upon this, "out of an inward displeasure then taken against his sharp and importune infusions, and out of a glimmering oversight that he would prove the very instru- ment of his ruin," determined to dismiss him from his service ; and when this discharge was notified to CufFe, so little was he prepared for it, that " he was stricken therewith into a swoon, almost dead to the earth, as if he had fallen from some high steeple ; such turrets of hope he had built in his own fancy ".* At this time the Countess of Warwick (a lady powerful in the court, and indeed a virtuous user of her power), advised him to take an out-lodging, privately at Greenwich ; and sometimes when the queen went abroad in a good humour, of which she promised to give him notice, to come forth and humble himself before her on the field. This, which Sir Henry Wotton j- thought the best advice that was ever given him by either sex, he resolved to follow : but the resolution was of short continuance ; for CufFe, prevailing on Southampton to intercede for him, was restored, and "so working advantage upon his disgraces, and upon the vain foundation of vulgar breath, he spun out the final destruction of his master and himself, and almost of his restorer, — if his pardon had not been won by inches ".% Bacon, meantime, took every opportunity to speak in the earl's favour. One day, when the queen inquired how his brother fared under the treatment of a fellow who had under- taken to cure, or at least to ease, him of the gout ; and he had made answer, that at the first he had received some good, but afterwards found himself at a stay, or rather worse ; " I will tell you, Bacon, the error of it," said the queen. "The manner of these physicians, and especially these empirics, is, to continue one kind of medicine, which at the first is proper, being to draw out the ill humours ; but after, they have not * Camden (602) says that Merrick, the earl's steward, did not strike Cuffe's name out of the list of his servants, as he had been commanded to do, because he was secretly of Cuffe's opinion, and because he was afraid that out of revenge he might join the earl's enemies. But Sir Henry Wotton says he had the whole and true report by infallible means from the person himself who carried the discharge to Cuffe (p. 181). fP. 181. Xlbid. 200 ENGLISH SEAMEN the discretion to change the medicine, but apply still drawing medicines, when they should rather intend to cure and cor- roborate the part/' . . " Good Lord ! madam," said Bacon, "how wisely and aptly can you speak and discern of physic ministered to the body, and consider not that there is the like occasion of physic ministered to the mind ; as now in the case of my Lord of Essex. Your princely word ever was, that you intended ever to reform his mind, and not ruin his fortune. I know well you cannot but think you have drawn the humour sufficiently ; and therefore it were more than time, an it were but for doubt of mortifying or exulcerating, that you did apply and minister strength and comfort unto him : for these same gradations of yours are fitter to corrupt than correct any mind of greatness." * On the anniversary of her accession,-]- Essex wrote to the queen in these words : — " Vouchsafe, dread sovereign, to know there lives a man, though dead to the world, and in himself exercised with continual torments of body and mind, that doth more true honour to your thrice blessed day than all those that appear in your sight. For no soul had ever such an impression of your perfections, no alteration showed such an effect of your power, nor no heart ever felt such a joy of your triumph. For they that feel the comfortable influence of your majesty's favour, or stand in the bright beams of your presence, rejoice partly for your majesty's, but chiefly for their own happiness. Only miserable Essex, full of pain, full of sick- ness, full of son*ow, languishing in repentance for his offences past ; hateful to himself that he is yet alive, and importunate on death, if your favour be irrevocable, — he joys only for your majesty's great happiness and happy greatness : and were the rest of his days never so many, and sure to be as happy as they are like to be miserable, he would lose them all to have this happy l7th day many and many times renewed with glory to your majesty, and comfort of all your faithful subjects ; of whom none is accursed but " Your majesty's humblest vassal, " Essex." | The queen told Bacon that she had been moved by some very dutiful letter which the earl had written to her; but when she took it to be the abundance of his heart, she found * Bacon, vi., 269. f 17th November. X Birch, 462. ROBERT DEVEREUX 201 it to be but a preparative to a suit for the renewing his farm of sweet wines.* "O madam," replied Bacon, "how doth your majesty construe these things, as if these two could not stand well together, which indeed Nature hath planted in all creatures ! For there are but two sympathies, — the one towards perfection, the other towards preservation: that to perfec- tion, as the iron tendeth to the loadstone ; that to preservation, as the vine will creep towards a stake or prop, that stands by it, — not for any love to the stake, but to uphold itself. And therefore, madam, you must distinguish : my lord's desire to do you service is, as to his perfection, that which he thinks himself to be bom for ; whereas his desire to obtain this thing of you, is but for a sustentation." f The queen, however, upon this point, was not to be entreated : she gave Essex hopes of her favour both by word and letters ; but touching the favour, her reply was, that she must first understand of what value it was, for benefits were not to be bestowed blindfold. After a month's suspense, it was put into the hands of commissioners, to husband it for the queen. If the earl was mortified at this, much more was he hurt by certain of her "nipping expressions" which were reported to him, . . that an unruly horse must be abated of liis provender, to the end that he may be more easily managed ; and that it was a wise aphorism of the physicians, that the more you feed corrupt bodies the more hurt you do them. | These were bitter words for one who, even by his truest friends, was " noted for too bold an engrosser, both of fame and favour " ; and it was re- ported and believed, that in his anger he said the queen was grown as crooked in her disposition as in her carcass. "If ever that uncouth speech fell from him," says ClarendoD,§ "all my wonder at his destruction is taken from me." * Camden says that all wines except French and Rhenish were called so. t Bacon, vi., 270. t Birch, 459. Camden, 603. % Disparity between Buckingham and Essex, in the Reliquia Wotton- iancB. '• The speech as delivered to me," he says, " by one that was much conversant then in the secrets of the court, . . ' Haply there was a little unevenness in her shoulders ! ' " (p. 192). Camden says that this affront which he did her, in undervaluing her personal shape, inflamed her most of all (p. 605). He committed the further fault of overvaluing his own. "One cause of his presumption," says Osborn, "was the fond opinion he had that she would not rob her eyes of the great delight she took in his person ; a fantastical overweening of himself and woman's affection, to whom no single man's perfection was ever yet found con- tinually grateful " (ii., 68). 202 ENGLISH SEAMEN Bacon says, the issue of all the earl's dealing came to this, — that the queen liked him worse and worse, and became more incensed toward him. He also had incurred her displeasure by speaking so frequently in Essex's behalf; and he received such marks of it, that, presuming upon the good sense in which Elizabeth was never found wanting when an appeal was made to it, he requested to speak with her, and being admitted, dealt with her plainly, saying, " Madam, I see you withdraw your favour from me ; and now I have lost many friends for your sake, I shall lose you too. You have put me like one of those that the Frenchmen call enfans perdus, that serve on foot before horsemen. So have you put me into matters of envy, without place, or without strength ; and I know at chess, a pawn before the king is ever much played upon. A great many love me not, because they think I have been against my Lord of Essex ; and you love me not, because you know I have been for him. Yet will I never repent me that I have dealt in simplicity of heart towards you both, without respect of cautions to myself; and, therefore, vivus vidensque pereo. If I do break my neck, I shall do it in a manner as Mr. Dorrington* did it, which walked on the battlements of the church many days, and took a view and survey where he should fall. And so, madam, I am not so simple but that I take a prospect of mine overthrow : only I thought I would tell you so much, that you may know that it was faith, and not folly, that brought me into it. And so I will pray for you." . . "Upon which speeches of mine," says he, "uttered with some passion, it is true Her Majesty was exceedingly moved, and accumulated a number of kind and gracious words upon me, and willed me to rest upon this, * Gratia mea sufficit,' and a number of other sensible and tender words and demonstrations, such as more could not be ; but as touching my Lord of Essex, ne verhum quidem. Where- upon I departed, resting then determined to meddle no more in the matter, as that, that I saw would overthrow me, and not be able to do him any good. And thus I made mine own peace with mine own confidence at that time." f * Rowland Whyte, in a letter of 12th April, 1600, says, '* Dorrington, rich Dorrington, yesterday morning went up to St. Sepulchre's steeple, and threw himself over the battlement, and broke his neck. There was found a paper sealed about him, with this superscription ; — Lord, save my soul, and I will praise thy name " {Sydney Papers, ii., 187). t Bacon, vi., 271. ROBERT DEVEREUX 208 Apart from all personal provocation, and as yet not even sus- pecting the actual treason which had been plotted with Tyrone, Elizabeth had now sufficient reason to look upon Essex, not merely as a discontented man, but as a dangerous subject. While his worst counsellors were goading him with repre- sentations that he was scorned and triumphed over by his enemies ; that a resolution had been taken to thrust him to that extremity of poverty that he should be fain to live upon the alms-basket, and gather up crumbs from under the table ; that he would be forsaken by his friends, insulted by his foes, and slighted by all men ; open house was kept for all comers, and Merrick entertained at his table such men as at all times are found ready to take part in any mischief that promises advantage to their sect or party, or present profit to them- selves ; '' swordsmen, bold confident fellows, men of broken fortunes, discontented persons, and such as saucily used their tongues in railing against all men ". Sermons were preached there every day by zealous ministers, whom the citizens flocked to hear. And while he thus courted the Puritans, he held out hopes of encouragement to the papists also, — commiserating their situation under the restrictive laws, and intimating that in his opinion they were entitled to indulgences, which from the present Government were never to be looked for. Among the Romanists who frequented his house there were two whom Elizabeth's well-informed minister deemed it necessary to place under custody * when the Spanish invasion was expected ; and who afterwards proved that their character had not been mis- taken, by engaging in the gunpowder plot.-}- Essex, the while, seemed to give himself wholly " to the service of God, the entertainment of his friends, and hearing of sermons ".| It happened about this time that Lord Grey of Wilton met Southampton on horseback in the street, and attacked him with his sword ; and this, though he was committed to the Fleet prison for it by the queen's orders, exasperated Essex. * Strype's Whitgi/t, i., 530. Oxford edition. fUpon Captain Lee's trial, the lord chief justice, after saying that Mr. Attorney would of his own knowledge affirm that all the associates and complices of the earl in this practice were either atheists, papists, or men of broken estates, for he had looked into them all particularly, specified among the known papists, Catesby and Tresham, — " the last of which," he said, " was a stock that was genere minax Dei " {State Trials, i,, 1407, last edit.). X Camden, 603. 204 ENGLISH SEAMEN It occurred on a Sunday ; and he who had intended, he said, to have received the communion that day, in testimony that he was far from bearing malice to any, not even to his enemies, " found his affections, when he heard of this, to stir on it so exceedingly, that it hindered his intent ".* Thus far he had taken no measures which could bring him within the law of treason (far as that law could in those days be stretched), so long as his practices in Ireland remained undiscovered. It has never been known at what his ambition aimed, — probably he had no certain aim beyond that of re- moving those enemies from the Government by violence, whom he could no longer hope to supplant by favour. One who bore a part in his most secret counsels (and suffered in conse- quence), affirmed of him, that religion and fidelity were inherent in his nature. f That religion, however, did not withold him from calumniating those persons whom he looked upon as his enemies, or whom he had made such. For he began now to court the King of Scots, whom he was thought before to have offended ; and represented to him that Cecil, who had the administration in his own hands, and had gained the lord treasurer, Buckhurst, and the lord admiral, Nottingham, was preparing to resist his right of succession in favour of the infanta ; and that for this purpose Raleigh had been made governor of Jersey, Cobham warden of the Cinque Ports, Burleigh lord president of the north, and Sir George Carew president of Munster, — these being the most convenient places for receiving the Spaniards. Wherefore he advised the king to send ambassadors, and press for an immediate declaration of his title. James, who was in secret correspondence with Cecil himself, was too well informed, as well as too wary, to act upon such advice, and Essex's restless counsellors were too impatient to wait for the result of such proceedings. | Cuffe's advice was, that many should be got together for action, but the design communicated to few : those few were, Southampton ; Sir Charles Dan vers, who, in gratitude for some signal benefits received from Southampton, thought himself bound to engage with him in any cause, however * Camden, 605. Birch, 463. State Trials, 1354. t Osborn (ii., 67), says, '♦ This is what I have often heard averred by the friends of Sir Charles Danvers, whose youngest sister married my eldest brother ". J Camden, 605. Birch, 663. ROBERT DEVEREUX S05 desperate ; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Governor of Plymouth ; Sir John Davis, surveyor of the ordnance, — a person singularly well skilled in the mathematics; and John Lyttelton, of Frankley in Worcestershire, who in the Parliament of 1585 had been knight of the shire for that county, — a man of great resolution and ability. * Essex counted upon 120 earls, barons, and gentlemen, who participated, he said, in his dis- contented humour, and would join with him : he held himself indifferently affected by the citizens of London, and hoped to have a good party in Wales, f The chief conspirators having met at Drury House, thinking to avoid suspicion there, it was taken into consideration whether they should seize upon the palace or the Tower, or both at once : and what should be done afterwards. All were of opinion that the palace was the point which they must secure : and for this purpose it was determined that Blount, with a chosen body, should secure the gate ; Davis occupy the court, Danvers the great chamber (where the guard kept but a careless watch), and the presence chamber ; and that Essex, when the way had thus been made ready for him, should, with certain chosen persons, hasten from the neighbouring mews, fall upon his knees before the queen, and desire her to remove his enemies from her person. This done, the intention was to admit those enemies all to an honourable trial, and to call a Parliament for the reformation of disorders and private grievances. The Romanists of the party expected a toleration. The more daring conspirators dreamed of altering the form of the commonwealth. But for Essex himself, who was "befated with a strong opinion of success in all his actions," it was believed that he carried no evil meaning towards the State, and that his ambition was to act the part of Warwick the king-maker, and bring in King James on his own score, f A conspiracy in which so many noted persons were con- cerned, could hardly have escaped discovery even under a less vigilant Government. The more than usual resort to Essex House, under pretence of hearing sermons, afforded just cause for suspicion ; and that suspicion was increased by some words which had dropped from the preachers' mouths, as if the superior magistrates of the realm had power to restrain kings •Camden, 606. Birch, 463. -f State Trials, 1345. t Camden, 606. Birch, 464. State Trials, 1346-1349. Osbome, ii., 70. 65. 206 ENGLISH SEAMEN themselves. The lord treasurer, Sackville, in consequence, sent his eldest son to visit the earl, and under the show of courtesy, observe what he saw there ; and shortly after one of the secretaries summoned him to appear before the council, then assembled at the lord treasurer's house, that he might be admonished to use the liberty which had been granted him discreetly ; at the same time a paper was privately conveyed to him, which warned him to look to himself. He hereupon apprehending that something had been discovered, and that if he went before the council he should be committed to custody, excused himself on the score of illness ; and summoning with- out delay those in whom he confided most, gave them to understand that some of them were in danger of being carried to prison ; and consulted them whether they should at once seize on the court, or try the Londoners, if by their help they might effect their object ; or give up all, and save them- selves by flight. The first of these alternatives was thought desperate, unprepared as they were for such an immediate blow, and having heard also that the guards had been strengthened. While they debated upon the second, and some represented how uncertain any reliance is upon the disposition of the populace, a lower agent in the plot, who had been instructed to play this part, came in, and, as if he had been sent by the leaders of their friends in the city, made large promises of assistance on their part. Essex himself is said to have believed that Sir Thomas Smith, who was one of the sheriffs, and had the command of 1000 train-bands, would support him with that force. Forasmuch, therefore, as delay was now not less dangerous than rashness, he resolved that the next day, being Sunday, he would enter the city with 200 gentlemen, a little before the end of the sermon at St. Paul's, and inform the aldermen and common council, who would be attending service there, of the reason which moved him to that step, and ask their assistance against his enemies. If he found them unwilling to support him, he would im- mediately withdraw to some other part of the realm ; but if they answered his wishes, with their help he would make himself away to the queen's presence.* That afternoon Sir Gilly Merrick bespoke the play of Richard the Second f ; and when one of the players objected, •Camden, 607. Birch, 464. i State Trials^ 1412. Bacon, vi., 363. ROBERT DEVEREUX 207 because the play was old, and so few would come to it, that they should be losers if they played it, he gave them 40s. extra- ordinary, and thereupon played it was before him and a great company, all of whom were afterwards in what is called " the action ". All that night emissaries were sent about to stir up the earl's friends with intelligence that Cobham and Raleigh were lying in wait for his life. Betimes on the morrow, Rutland and Southampton repaired to him. Lord Sandys, Lord Monteagle, and some 300 gentlemen of good quality, all whom he courteously welcomed and embraced ; telling some, that as his over-potent enemies abused the queen's name to her prejudice and plotted against her life, he was resolved to go to her himself, and represent the danger she was in. To others he represented that he would betake himself to the city, and with the aid of the citizens, of whose affections he was assured, take vengeance for his injuries. The gates of his house meantime were kept close shut, and no man ad- mitted unless he were known to be a friend ; nor was any person allowed to go out except Sir Ferdinando Gorges, for whom Raleigh sent, saying that he waited for him on the river. Blount was for profiting by the opportunity, and urged him to seize Raleigh ; but there was a better understanding between Sir Ferdinando and Sir Walter : whether the former revealed the whole design at this time is uncertain ; but he received a warning to take heed that he were not imprisoned for being absent from his Government without leave, and on his part he intimated to Raleigh that a confederacy had been formed against him and others who abused the queen's authority.* Meantime the lord mayor received orders to look to the city, and take care that the citizens should be ready every man in his house to execute the queen's commands. Using authority before she would use force, however, Elizabeth sent the lord keeper, the Earl of Worcester, the lord chief justice, and Sir William Knolles, the comptroller of her household, to Essex House : the latter was the earl's uncle, and all four had been chosen, not only because of their merit, but also because they were persons whom he was supposed both to respect, and to regard as friends. They found the gates shut ; and when they were let in at the wicket, their servants were shut * Camden, 6o8. Birch, 465. 208 ENGLISH SEAMEN out, except the purse-bearer with the seal. The leaders and their company were in the courtyard, and thronged about them as they advanced toward the earl, to whom the lord keeper in an audible voice delivered the queen's message, that they were sent to understand the cause of this so great a concourse of people, and let them know that if they had any particular griefs to allege, they should have hearing and justice. Essex loudly and angrily answered, that he knew there was a design against his life ; that he was to have been murdered in his bed ; that he had been perfidiously used, and letters counterfeited under his hand ; and that, seeing neither his sufferings nor his patience could assuage the malice of his enemies, unless they might drink his blood, he and his friends were assembled there to defend themselves. To this the lord chief justice replied, that if any such matters were attempted or intended against him, it was fit that he should declare it ; they would report it faithfully to Her Majesty, and he could not fail of finding a princely indifferency and justice on her part. Southampton then, for want of any other grievance, mentioned that Lord Grey had assaulted him with his sword : the lord chief justice answered, that in that matter justice had been done, and the party was in prison for it. The lord keeper then required Essex to explain his griefs privately, if he would not in public, adding, that they doubted not either to give or procure him satisfaction. He was interrupted by a great clamour, with cries of " Away, my lord ! they abuse your patience ! they betray you ; they undo you ; you lose time ! " Whereupon the lord keeper put on his hat, and said with a louder voice, " My lord, let us speak with you privately, and understand your griefs ; and (turning to the multitude) I command you all upon your allegiance to lay down your weapons and depart ". At this Essex and the rest disdainfully put on their hats ; the earl abruptly went into the house, and the counsellors followed him, thinking he would confer with them as they required. As they passed through several rooms they heard some exclaim, " Kill them, kill them ! " and others, " Shop them up ! cast that great seal out of the window ! keep them as pledges ". When they were come into his book-chamber, he gave orders to keep them fast there. The persons to whom he gave them in charge were Sir John Davis, Tresham, and Owen Salisbury, "one of the most seditious and wicked ROBERT DEVEREUX 209 persons of the number, having been a notorious robber, and one that had served the enemy under the Romish traitor Sir William Stanley, and that bore a special spleen against the lord chief justice". A guard was set by these persons at the door with muskets charged and matches lighted. This done, Essex left Merrick in charge of the house, and saying to the lord keeper, " Have patience for a while ; I will go take order with the mayor and sheriffs for the city, and be with you again by and by ! " he and his followers sallied forth like demented men.* The unexpected coming of the queen's counsellors confused Essex in the execution of his ill-arranged plan. He went forth with about 200 men, "choice men for hardiness and valour" — bold enough, indeed, for any enterprise, however desperate ; but in such haste, that they were not provided like soldiers, most of them having their cloaks wrapped about their arms, and only swords by their sides. The Earl of Bed- ford, the Lord Cromwell, and a few other persons of some consideration, joined them. Entering the city by Ludgate, the earl attempted to raise the people by crying, "For the queen ! for the queen ! a plot is laid for my life ! England is bought and sold to the Spaniards ! " and repeating these cries as he hastened along Cheapside to Sheriff Smith's house, which was near Fenchurch ; many came to gaze, but none to join him, though he told them to take their weapons, for otherwise they did him hurt instead of good. "Nevertheless," says Camden, "in all the city, though then well trained to arms, and populous, and much devoted to him, not so much as one man of the meanest quality took arms for him : for the citizens, though, according to the temper and disposition of the vulgar, they were desirous of change and innovation, yet by reason of their wealth they were fearful withal, and un- shaken in their fidelity to their sovereign. And, indeed, poverty, of all other things, is that which soonest plungeth the English into rebellion." As he drew near the sheriff's he called for him, saying, "Where is the sheriff .> Let him bring muskets and pistols. It is for the good of the queen, and of you all, my masters ; for I am credibly informed out of Ireland, that the kingdom of England is sold to the Spaniards!" But the sheriff, of whom he thought himself ♦ Camden, 608. Birch, 465. Bacon, vi., 333-337- 14 210 ENGLISH SEAMEN sure, withdrew by a back door, and hastened to the lord mayor. Essex went into the house ; his countenance changed as he now became sensible of his own madness ; and struggling against such emotions as he had never felt before, he called for refreshments, and for linen to shift himself, — for the sweat started at every pore.* Meantime, Cecil's elder brother, Lord Burleigh, and Dethick, Garter king-at-arms, with some ten horse, came into the city, and, though some opposition was attempted, and some violence offered, proclaimed the earl and his adherents traitors. The Earl of Cumberland, and Sir Thomas Gerard, knight marshal, made the like proclamation in other parts of the city. As soon as Essex was informed of this, he hastened out of the sheriffs house, and in a state of hopelessness which had none of that resolution that so often accompanies despair, crying out that England was sold to the Infanta of Spain, he called again upon the citizens to arm. Not a man was found mad enough to stake his life upon a game that was already lost ; even his own deluded followers were beginning to slink away : and when he heard that the lord admiral was coming with a strong party of men to suppress the insurrection, he could devise no other course than that of returning to his own house, and endeavouring to obtain pardon by means of the four counsellors whom he had left there in durance. But Ludgate was guarded now by Sir John Levison with a competent force ; and when he found that he should not have leave to pass, he authorised Gorges to go alone and release the lord chief justice, and by his means intercede for pardon, while, as he fancied, there was still room and hope for it, . . no blood having been shed, the queen being as yet doubtful of the success, and the citizens' minds uncertain. Gorges's object was to take the best care he could for himself; and as the chief justice refused his liberty unless the lord keeper also were released, he set all the four counsellors free, and went with them by water to the court. ■]- While Gorges thus provided for his own safety, Essex was too much agitated to act consistently with his last intentions. Finding a chain, as he returned home, drawn across the street near the west gate of St. Paul's, and pikemen and musketeers * Camden, 609. Birch, 466. + Camden, 610. Birch, 466, 467. ROBERT DEVEREUX 211 stationed by the bishop's care to defend it, he drew his sword and ordered Blount to fall on. It is possible that at this moment a feeling of old enmity may have impelled Blount eagerly to obey that order; for the person immediately op- posed to him (Waite by name) was one whom Leicester, being jealous of Blount (who afterwards married his widow), had sent, it is said, into Holland to assassinate him. This man Blount attacked fiercely, and killed him ; but he was presently forsaken by his own people, sore wounded, and taken prisoner. Henry Tracey was slain, a young gentleman whom Essex loved dearly ; and on the other part, two or three citizens. Essex was shot through the hat; being repulsed and not pursued, he turned aside to Queenhithe with the few who would not forsake him, and procuring boats there returned to his house. Arriving there, and finding that the counsellors were released, he was irritated, as seeing that Gorges had thought only of himself: he burnt several papers, that they might tell no tales (he said) ; and clinging to a forlorn hope that the Londoners might yet come to his succour, he prepared to defend his house, and fortified it as well as the time would allow on all sides. It was soon invested by the lord admiral ; and the Earls of Cumberland and Lincoln, the Lords Thomas Howard, Grey, Burleigh, and others, were stationed with horse and foot on the land side. The lord admiral himself, his son Lord Effingham, Lord Cobham, Sir John Stanhope, Sir Robert Sidney, and Sir Fulke Greville, occupied the garden, and prepared to attack it from the river side. Every- thing being ready for the assault, Sidney, by the lord admiral's order, summoned them to surrender. " To whom ? " Southampton asked ; " To our enemies ? that would be running headlong to destruction. To the queen ? that were to confess ourselves guilty. Yet, if the lord admiral will give us hostages for our security, we will appear before the queen : if not, we are every one resolved to die in our de- fence." The lord admiral returned for answer, that conditions were not to be propounded by rebels, nor hostages given to them ; but he signified to Essex that he would permit the countess, and Lady Rich his sister, and their waiting gentle- women, who were filling the air with their lamentations, to go out. Essex received this as a favour, and asked that an hour or two might be granted him for fortifying the place by which they should go forth. And this was granted ; it was. 212 ENGLISH SEAMEN indeed, only allowing time for excitement to spend itself and passion to grow cool. * Before the first hour had expired, Essex was for sallying to force his way. Lord Sandys, the oldest of the conspirators, encouraged him in this ; urging that the bravest counsels were the best, and it was more honourable for men of quality to die sword in hand, than by the executioner. But neither did this resolution hold : he signified that he would surrender upon certain conditions ; and when the lord admiral would admit of none, he lowered his tone, and said, he sought not to prescribe, but was willing to receive them, and only re- quested three things ; — that they should be civilly dealt withal, — which was promised ; that their cause might be justly and lawfully heard, — which, it was replied, there was no reason to doubt ; and lastly, that Mr. Ashton, the minister, might attend him in prison, for the good of his soul. The lord admiral promised to intercede for this with the queen ; and all the nobles and gentlemen of the party then knelt, and delivered up their swords to him. Owen Salisbury and one or two more had been killed in the house, by shot from without ; and about as many of the soldiers had fallen. By this it was about ten o'clock; the night being dark, and the river not passable under the bridge, Essex and Southampton, instead of being sent immediately to the Tower, were con- ducted by the lord admiral to the archbishop's at Lambeth. At seeing one in such circumstances who had been placed under his care at Cambridge, the good old archbishop ex- pressed his sorrow, and that Essex should so far have forgotten himself ; but the earl smiled with a show of bravery in reply, and said that his conscience and the goodness of his cause comforted him : he spoke with bitter contempt of the Londoners, calling them a base people, and boasting that he had gone up and down the city without resistance ; that he had passed their lanes and their barricades without a blow being offered at him : and that with 400 of his chosen men he would undertake to overrun it. Such language beseemed the condition in which he then stood as little as it suited what had just passed, and what was soon to follow, f The two earls, with the other principal offenders, were soon * Camden, 6io. Birch, 467. t Camden, 611. Birch, 467, 468. ROBERT DEVEREUX US removed to the Tower by water ; the rest were committed to the common prisons. The next day the queen, by proclama- tion, thanked the citizens of London for showing themselves constant and unmovable in their duties to her, and exhorted them to be careful of the peace of the city, seeing the insur- rection had been so sudden that the extent of the design was not known. "In twelve hours," says Camden, "was this commotion suppressed ; which some called a fear and mistrust, others an oversight ; others, who censured it more hardly, termed it an obstinate impatience and seeking of revenge ; and such as spoke worst of it, called it an unadvised and in- discreet temerity : and to this day there are but few that ever thought it a capital crime." No one, however, who knew what the laws of the country were, could think it less. Cecil, in a letter to the Lord President of Munster, called it " a most dangerous attempt, wherein both Her Majesty's own person and the usurpation of the kingdom was openly shot at" ; and enclosing the proclamation, to show what Essex's proceedings had been, he added — " I think, by that time my letters shall come unto you, both he and the Earl of Southampton, with some others of the principals, shall have lost their heads ".* They who were privy to the earl's designs had just cause for apprehending the same result ; and this consciousness (as " fear is a betrayal of the succour that reason proferreth ") hurried one of his most confidential agents to a design as in- consistent and insane as it were desperate, which brought on his own destruction, and is thought to have hastened Essex's also. Captain Thomas Lee, who had opened the treasonable communication between him and Tyrone, happened not to be implicated in the insurrection ; when it broke out, he went to the lord admiral and to Cecil, and offered his services to kill the earl, which, he said, he could have good opportunity of doing, being loved by him. Upon their refusal to employ him in any such service, he would fain have made the same offer to the queen. Four days afterwards he went to Sir Robert Crosse, and observed, that a man might do a brave act to set those lords at liberty. Raleigh, he said, might get him- self eternal honour and love, more than ever he could otherwise, * Camden, 612. Birch, 468. Cecil says in this letter, " Even when a false alarm was brought to the queen, that the city was revolted with them, she never was more amazed than she would have been to have heard of a fray in Fleet Street ". 214 ENGLISH SEAMEN if he would procure Her Majesty's warrant to free them, which he might do by undertaking her person. Crosse replied, that Sir Walter would certainly do no such thing ; upon which Lee said, half a dozen resolute men might do it, such as had access to the presence. Themselves he named. Sir Henry Nevil, Sir Jarvis Clifton, Sir George Gifford, and Sir R. Weston. If they would kneel before the queen, and never rise till she had signed a warrant, send this to the lord admiral, and never stir till Essex and Southampton were brought there ; meantime they might keep anybody out by shutting the door, and telling those who might offer to come in, that if any harm came to the queen, — if she should do otherwise than well, it would be at their peril. This proposal was the exact counter- part of Essex's own design. Crosse immediately reported it to the council. Lee was apprehended that night. His examination aiforded a clue to the discovery of the treason concerted with Tyrone. He was tried for high treason the next day, and executed the day after.* And now one ot the conspirators, it is not known who, "tempted (says Camden) with hope of life, or some small reward, discovered the whole plot which had been concerted at Drury House ; which when others perceived by some questions that were put to them, concluding that all was discovered, and that it was a foolish fidelity to attempt concealing what had already been revealed, they confessed all " : and, on the eleventh day after the insurrection, Essex and Southampton were brought to trial in Westminster Hall, Lord Buckhurst sitting as High Steward of England, and Raleigh attending as captain of the guard. The two earls kissed each other's hands, and embraced. When the names of the peers were called over, Essex desired to know whether he might challenge any of them ; and was answered. No.-]- The case of Lord Darcy, in Henry VII I. 's time, was alleged : and it was said, such was the credit and estimation of the peers of England, that they are neither compelled to an oath on trial, nor liable * State Trials, 1403-1410. t In this there was no cause of complaint. The peers were twenty-five, — "a greater number than hath been called in any former precedent. Amongst whom her majesty did not forbear to use many that were of near alliance and blood to the Earl of Essex, and some others, that had their sons and heirs apparent that were of his company, and followed him in the open action of rebellion" (Bacon, vi., 343). ROBERT DEVEREUX 215 to exceptions. Upon hearing Lord Grey called, Essex laughed upon the Earl of Southampton, and jogged him by his sleeve. They knew not at this time that everything had been con- fessed. Serjeant Yelverton, in opening the indictment, said that this rebellion had been more manifest than Catiline's to the city of Rome ; and, consequently, England in no less danger. And as Catiline entertained the most seditious persons about all Rome to join with him in his conspiracy, so Essex had had none but papists, recusants, and atheists for his adjutors and abettors. " I much wonder," said he, " that his heart could forget all the princely advancements given him by Her Majesty, and be so suddenly beflinted, as to turn them all to rebellious ends ; but it seems this overweighing a man's own conceit, and an aspiring mind to wished honour, is like the crocodile, which is ever growing as long as he liveth." At the conclusion of his speech, he prayed God long to preserve the queen from the hands of her enemies. " Amen ! " cried the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Southampton, "and God confound their souls that ever wished otherwise to her sacred person." The attorney general. Coke, touched upon the quality of the rebellion, the manner, the circumstances, and the person. "The quality," said he, "hath high treason — for which I shall not need to say any more. For the manner, I hold it an unnatural act for a natural subject to commit treason against his natural sovereign ; and methinks it cannot be by any probability denied, but that this high treason * is and must be both against the law of God, nature and reason." The circum- stances were the signal favours which he had received from the queen, all aggravating his crime. The person was the queen herself : " And though," said he, " I cannot speak without reverent commendation of Her Majesty's most honour- * " Which was not only carried in their hearts," he said, " but, for a continual remembrance, kept in a black purse, which my Lord of Essex wore on his breast next to his skin." A subsequent speech of Coke's explains this : " One Pashell," he said, " affirmed the burning of a black purse by the Earl of Essex, which my lord confesseth ; but saith that there was nothing in it but the key of an iron chest, which he took out ; and burnt a paper in the same purse, which did not contain above five or six lines of secret matter; and for that he would not have so much as their names drawn into question, which were altogether ignorant of these occurrents, did throw the purse and paper into the fire" {State Trials, 1348). 216 ENGLISH SEAMEN able justice, yet I think her overmuch clemency to some, turneth to overmuch cruelty to herself; for though these rebellious attempts were so exceedingly heinous, yet, out of her princely mercy, no man was racked, tortured, or pressed to speak anything further than, of their own accord and willing minds, for discharge of their consciences they uttered : and then to see the mercy of God, that will have the truth known, it is admirable beyond the conceit of man's capacity ; for they being severally examined, notwithstanding, all agree directly without varying". Briefly stating then their design of surprising the Tower and the court ; " This," said he, " was not all ; for the earl, he must call a Parliament, and he would decide matters not making for his purpose ; but now, in God's most just judgment, he of his earldom shall be Robert the last, that of the kingdom thought to be Robert the first." When he had concluded, Essex said, "Will your lordships give us our turns to speak? for he playeth the orator, and abuseth your lordships' ears and us with slander ; but they are but fashions of orators in corrupt States. Unless it will please you that we might answer to every particular, we shall soon confound our own memories, and give advantage to our enemies whereupon to lay hold, for lack of precise answer to each particular objection." He was interrupted now ; * but what he asked, was allowed. Henry Witherington's ex- amination was then read, in which the deponent stated, that when the four counsellors were detained, he heard their lives threatened, and that orders were left to kill the lord keeper and the lord chief justice if the earl should miscarry in the city. Upon this Essex observed, " I will not, I protest to God, speak to save my life ; for those that prosecute it against me shall do me a good turn to rid me of my misery, and them- selves out of fear". He protested that he heard no such * " The hearing was with great patience and liberty ; the ordinary course not being held to silence the prisoners till the whole state of the evidence was given in ; but they being suffered to answer articulately to every branch of the evidence, and sometimes to every particular deposition, whensoever they offered to speak ; and not so only, but they were often spared to be interrupted, even in their digression and speeches not much pertinent to their cause. And always when any doubt in law was moved, or when it was required either by the prisoners or the peers, the lord steward required the judges to deliver the law ; who gave their opinions severally, not barely yea or no, but at large with their reasons" (Bacon, vi., 344). ROBERT DEVEREUX 217 words as "kill them"; and that, as for locking up the counsellors, it was done without disloyalty, and intending only in charity to save them lest they should take hurt. But the lords keeper and chief justice, and the Earl of Worcester, testified that they heard the words, though they would not charge Essex that they were spoken either by his privity or command. When the declaration of the four counsellors had been read. Coke said, " Yea, my lord, you had 300 men in arms in your house ; why did you not dissolve them, being commanded upon your allegiance so to do?" Essex replied, it was not in his power to dissolve them suddenly, nor to quench their passions, nor to withold their purposes. " Word was brought," said he, "that men were sent for to take us in our own houses ; then we, conceiving the thirsty appetite of our private enemies, took ourselves to our arms, and were glad to stand upon our guard for our own defence. . . And whereas we are charged to have dealt with papists ; I assure your lordships, and it is most true, that papists have been hired and suborned to witness against me." In proof of this, he mentioned a seminary priest, who had been sent, he said, to Ireland, to touch his honour and reputation; and a scrivener, who had confessed in writing to have forged and counterfeited his hand in at least two letters. "Ay, by my troth," quoth the attorney-general, " this is true ; but it was by the procurement of one of your own servants." Essex rejoined, "Thou swearest it ; but it is not on a book. That man thou say est I procured to do it, his name is John Daniel, an arrant thief; one that broke a standard of mine, and stole a casket of my wife's, and many other things. It is very probable that I should trust him so far, that had before betrayed me ! But it is well known who set him at work to procure my hand to be counterfeited. Well, Mr. Attorney, I thank God you are not my judge this day, you are so uncharitable ! " The attorney answered, " Well, my lord, we shall prove you anon what you are, which your pride of heart and aspiring mind hath brought you to". The earl replied, "Ah ! Mr. Attorney, lay your hand upon your heart and pray to God to forgive us both ! " . . When Essex had begun to tamper with treason- able thoughts, it was easy for him to believe that others were plotting against him. This, however, was a tangible fact : due inquiry was afterwards made ; and it was then ascertained 218 ENGLISH SEAMEN that the Countess of Essex, misdoubting danger in those times, had put some of the letters which he had written to her, in a cabinet, and trusted it to the keeping of a Dutch- woman, the wife of this John Daniel. This villain discovered them by accident, read them, and observing some passages which might incense the queen and endanger the earl, caused them to be copied by one who was expert at counterfeiting hands ; and when the countess was ready to lie in, he threatened to deliver these papers into the hands of the earl's enemies unless she would give him 3000/. To avert that danger, she gave him immediately all she could then com- mand, which was 1 1 70/. ; upon which he gave her the counterfeit copies, and kept the originals, with the intention of getting another sum for them from the other party. By a righteous judgment of the Star Chamber, when this had been proved, he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment ; to a fine of 3000/., 2000/. of which were to be paid to the countess ; and to stand with his ears nailed to the pillory, with this inscription, "A wicked forger and impostor".* This affair had not yet been sifted ; and, though incidentally mentioned, had no bearing on the trial. Raleigh now gave evidence of his conversation on the water with Gorges, who had, told him that it was like to be the bloodiest day's work that ever was ; upon which Essex observed, that this differed altogether from what Sir Ferdinando had told them at Essex House immediately after the conference. Gorges's confession was then read, and acknowledged by himself ; f after which, the several examinations of Danvers, Davis, Blount, the Earl of Rutland, and Lords Cromwell, Sandys, and Monteagle. Coke then besought the peers to let the due consideration of these several examinations and depositions enter their hearts : *'And do but note," said he, "they have all agreed and jumped together in each particular point, nothwithstanding they were all severally examined : but I must need think it the just judgment of God, in his mercy towards our sovereign, * Camden, 630. t Camden (p. 615) says, " As soon as Essex saw him, supposing that he (because his evidence was first produced) had, either out of hope or fear, discovered the whole business, and came voluntarily as a witness against him, out of madness and vexation he smartly snubbed and checked him, endeavouring to invalidate the credit ©f his testimony by the paleness of his unsettled and discomposed countenance". ROBERT DEVEREUX «19 to have the truth so marvellously revealed, coming from them of their own accords, without rack or torture to any of them ". . . " Mr. Attorney," replied Essex, " I answer then this for that point : The self-same fear, and the self-same examiner, may make these several examinations agree all in one, were they never so far distant. But good my lord, let me entreat your lordship to consider who they be that testify thus against me. My lord, they are men within the danger of the law, and such as speak with a desire to live ; but I think they have much to answer for between God and their souls and me." He protested that his purpose was to have come with eight or nine honourable persons, who had just cause of discontentment (though not equal unto his), to the queen, and, prostrating themselves at her feet, have put them- selves to her mercy, and requested that she would be pleased to sever from her some who abused her ears with false infor- mation ; and these were Cobham, Cecil, and Raleigh. Upon this Cobham rose, and said he had done nothing maliciously against the earl. To whom Essex answered, " But such a backbiter and informer I would have removed from the queen, though it had cost me the loss of my right hand ! . . This," he continued, " was all their desire, and without any purpose of hurt to Her Highness ; for I protest before God," said he,. '* I do carry as reverent and loyal duty to Her Majesty as any man in the world." Turning then to Gorges, he said, concern- ing his testimony, " I will say no more, but that if it please Her Majesty to be merciful unto him, I will be glad, and pray for it. Yet, whatsoever he hath said, let my life and his deal- ing testify the truth. And, Sir Ferdinando, speak nothing to touch thyself, and speak what thou wilt to me, for I see thou desirest to live. But speak like a man ; — speak openly what- soever thou dost remember ; and with all my heart I desire thee to speak freely." Gorges, however, when called upon by the court to unfold what other secrets had passed, said he had delivered on his examination all he could remember, and farther he could not say. " Yes, Ferdinando," said the earl, " if ever you knew any other matter which contained any thought of treason or disloyalty, speak out ; for they are things not to be forgotten." . . "Good Sir Ferdinando," said Southampton, "satisfy the court what was intended among all our conferences and talk of our enemies, and discontentments, and consultations." Gorges replied, " Some 220 ENGLISH SEAMEN delivered their minds one way, some another; but by the oath I have taken, I did never know or hear of any pur- pose of hurt or disloyalty intended to Her Majesty's person by my Lord of Essex ". Southampton, though he must needs confess, he said, that going into the city was a foolish action, protested that the purpose of planting men at court had no other intention than that of preventing hindrance by private enemies, who would have stopped the earl's passage to the queen ; and he asked the attorney-general what he thought in his conscience, they would have done to Her Majesty ? " The same that Henry of Lancaster to Richard IL," was Coke's prompt reply ; — *'he went to the king and fell on his knees, 'pretending to beg only the removal of his evil counsellors ; but having once gotten the king in his power, he deprived him both of crown and life." Cobham entreated Essex to let him know why he laid such imputations upon him. Essex replied, " My lord, I have forgiven all the world, and therefore you shall not need to insist upon these circumstances ; for I lay not my cause upon aught that shall do your lordship any harm for my sake. My heart bears you no malice ; what I spake was freely and in God's presence, hoping Her Majesty would have heard us, and our complaints being but true : I never spake it out of fear of death, or desire of life." It was now Bacon's painful part to invalidate the earl's defence, and show the futility of his attempt to excuse him- self by imputing plots to his enemies : he compared him to Pisistratus for dissimulation, and ambition ; and assuring him that all he had said, or could say in his defence were but shadows, admonished him that it were his best course to con- fess, and not to justify, Essex grew angry at this, and endeavoured to expose him to a charge of double-dealing and insincerity, reminding him of having composed a letter in his name, which was to be shown the queen ; and in which he pointed out his enemies as directly as might be ; " which letter," said he, "I know Mr. Secretary Cecil hath seen; and by him it will appear what conceit he held of me, though he thus coloureth and pleadeth the contrary ". . . . " My lord," replied Bacon, "I spent more hours to make you a good subject, than upon any man in the world besides ; but since you have stirred up this point, I dare warrant you this letter will not blush ; for I did but perform the part of an honest ROBERT DEVEREUX 221 man, and ever laboured to have done you good, if it might have been, and to no other end." Well had it been for Bacon, if he had been in all points as blameless as in this. " Well, my lord," said Essex, " I do here protest before the living God, that an honourable, grave, and wise counsellor hath lamented and grieved at the courses he hath seen taken, and therewith hath often wished himself dead ; this I speak upon credible and honourable information. But I can prove thus much from Sir Robert Cecil's own mouth ; that he, speaking to one of his fellow-counsellors, should say that none in the world but the Infanta of Spain had right to the crown of England." At this, Cecil, who was in an apartment close by, where he heard all, hastened into the court, and kneeling before the lord steward, besought that he might have leave to answer so false and foul an accusation. This being granted he turned to the earl : " For wit," said he, " I am your inferior, for indeed you have wit at will ; I am your inferior in nobility, for I am not in the rank of the prime nobility, yet noble I am ; a swordsman I am not, and herein also you go before me. Yet the difference here between you and me is great ; for I stand here in the character of an honest man, and you in that of a delinquent. I stand for loyalty which I never lost, you for treachery with which your heart is possessed; and you charge me with high things, wherein I defy you to the uttermost. You, my good lords counsellors of State, have had many conferences ; and I do confess I have said the King of Scots is a competitor, and the King of Spain a competitor ; and you, I have said, are a competitor ; you would depose the queen, you would be King of England, and call a Parliament Ah ! my lord, were it but your own case, the loss had been the less ; but you have drawn a number of noble persons, and gentlemen of birth and quality, into your net of rebellion, and their bloods will cry vengeance against you ! For my part, I vow to God, I wish my soul was in heaven, and my body at rest, so this had never been." . . " Ah ! Mr. Secretary," replied the scornful earl, "I thank God for my humbling, that you in the rust of your bravery come to make your oration against me here this day ! " So remarkable a scene has rarely occurred in a court of justice. Cecil made answer, " My lord, I humbly thank God that you did not take me for a fit companion ; for if you had. 222 ENGLISH SEAMEN you would have drawn me to betray my sovereign as you have done. But I would have you name the counsellor you speak of. Name him, name him ! name him if you dare ! if you dare, I defy you ; name him ! " Essex replied to this challenge, " Here stands an honourable person (looking on Southampton) who knows I speak no fable : he heard it as well as I ". . . " Then, my Lord of Southampton," said Cecil, " I adjure and beseech you, by the duty you owe to God, by the loyalty and allegiance you owe to your sovereign, by our joint Christian profession, by the old friendship and familiarity that once was betwixt us, and by the honour of your family, that you name the person ! " Southampton referred it to the court and to Cecil himself, whether he could, consistently with honour: and upon being required to do so, he named Essex's uncle. Sir William Knolles, comptroller of the queen's household. The assertion would not have been thus made by the one, and corroborated by the other, unless both had believed it ; and it shows how completely the spirit of party had demented them. Cecil exclaimed, " I thank God for this day ! " and falling upon his knees, requested of the lord high steward that some one who had access to the queen's presence might go and humbly entreat her to command Mr. Comptroller to come before his grace. A gentleman of the privy chamber, Knevet by name, was desired accordingly to let the queen understand Mr. Secretary's demand. "Mr. Knevet," said Cecil, " you shall have free access ^to Her Majesty ; tell her that I vow before the God of heaven, that if she refuse to send Mr. Comptroller, whereby I may clear myself of these open scandals, I will rather die at her feet, as her subject and vassal, than live to do her any more service in this honourable degree wherein Her Highness employs me. And withal let me adjure you that you do not acquaint Mr. Comptroller with the cause why you come for him." The comptroller soon came ; and being called upon to declare what he knew of the matter, said he remembered that, some years ago, Doleman's book, in which he maintained the title of the infanta to the crown of England, was read in Mr. Secretary's presence ; but more than this he had not said, nor had he ever heard Cecil use any such words, or any words to such effect. . . "But these words," the earl said, "were reported to me in another sense.". . " Your malice," replied Cecil, " whereby you seek to procure me hatred with all men. ROBERT DEVEREUX 223 hath been occasioned only by my affection to peace for the good of my country, and your own ardent desire of war, for the pleasure and profit of swordsmen, whom you labour to bring to your beck and devotion. Hence proceeds your enmity against all that are affected to peace, as if they were addicted to the Spaniards. I beseech God to forgive you for this open wrong done unto me, as I do openly pronounce that I forgive you from the bottom of my heart." . . "And I, Mr. Secretary," the earl replied, "do clearly and freely forgive you, with all my soul, because I mean to die in charity." Essex, after his preposterous charge had been thus confuted, became milder, and protested that his conscience was clear from any disloyal thought ; and imprecated some present mark of God's judgment upon him in that place, in just punishment of his falsehood, if he had not in all his thought and purposes ever desired the good of his sovereign and his country as of his own soul. He disclaimed all imputation of irreligion or misbeUef, declaring that he never was a papist, nor had ever favoured any sectary ; for his religion was sound, and as he had lived he meant to die in it. He would have surrendered himself to the Earl of Cumberland, he said, if he had found him at the chain at Ludgate ; or to the lord mayor, or aldermen, if they had come to him when he was at the sheriffs, to be used by them as they thought fit, or put into prison. It was in regard of private enemies, and fear of treachery, that he went into the city ; if it had been with any other intent, he would not have gone with so small a company and so slightly armed. Southampton made no attempt to justify himself. He requested, that if others had used foolish speeches, it might not be concluded that he had ever consented to their purposes. "The first occasion," said he, "that made me adventure into these courses was the affinity between my Lord of Essex and me : I being of his blood, and having married his kinswoman, so that for his sake I should have hazarded my life. What I have by my forwardness offended in act, I am altogether ignorant ; but in thought, I am assured never ; and if through my ignorance in the law I have offended, I humbly submit myself to Her Majesty, and from the bottom of my heart do beg her gracious pardon, if it please her." The prisoners having been removed from the bar, the lords withdrew behind the canopy, where the two chief judges, and the chief baron, delivered their opinion upon two points : the 224 ENGLISH SEAMEN one, "that in case where a subject attempteth to put himself into such strength as the king shall not be able to resist him, and to force and compel the king to govern otherwise than according to his own royal authority and direction, it is manifest rebellion": the other, ''that in every rebeUion, the law intendeth, as a consequence, the compassing the death and deprivation of the king; as foreseeing that the rebel will never suffer that king to live or reign, who might take revenge of his treason and rebellion". In less than an hour the peers returned to their seats ; and in their order, without a dissentient voice, declared both prisoners guilty. Upon being asked why judgment of death should not be pronounced against him, Essex replied, "I only say, that since I have committed that which hath brought me within the compass of the law, I may be counted the law's traitor, for which I am willing to die. But do me the right, I beseech you, my lords, to think me a Christian, and that I have a soul to save, and that I know it is no time to jest ; lying and counterfeiting my soul abhorreth ; for I am not desperate nor void of grace, now to speak falsely. I do not speak to save my life, for that I see were vain. I owe God a death, which shall be welcome, how soon soever it pleaseth Her Majesty. And to satisfy the opinion of the world, that my conscience is free from atheism and popery, however I have been misled in this action to transgress the points of the law, and however I have omitted, or may have uttered anything otherwise, yet I will live and die in the faith and true religion which I have here professed." Southampton, when he was called upon to speak, besought the lords high steward and high admiral to let the queen know that he craved her mercy. " I have been brought up under Her Majesty," said he ; "I have spent the best part of my patrimony in her service, with danger of my life, as your lord- ships know ; and if any could challenge me that I have ever heretofore committed or intended treason, or any other thing prejudicial to Her Majesty, or her estate, God let me never enter into his kingdom ! But since the law hath cast me, I do submit myself to death : and yet I will not despair of Her Majesty's mercy, for that I know she is merciful ; and if she please to extend it, I shall with all humility receive, and may by my service deserve it." Camden, who was present, says, he spake this in a manner which moved all who heard him to compas- sion. ROBERT DEVEREUX 225 The high steward, then reminding Essex what favours the queen had bestowed on his predecessor and himself, wished that he also would submit himself to her mercy, and reconcile him- self inwardly to her, by laying open all matters that were in- tended to prejudice her, and the actors thereof; "whereby," he said, " no doubt, you shall find Her Majesty merciful "... "My lord," replied Essex, "you have made an honourable motion : do but send to me at the time of my death, and you shall see how penitent and humble I will be towards Her Majesty, both in acknowledging her exceeding favours to my ancestors, and to myself. And I do most humbly desire that my death may put a period to my offences committed, that they be no more remembered by Her Highness. If I had ever perceived any of my followers to have harboured an evil thought against Her Majesty, I would have been the first that should have punished the same, in being his executioner : and therefore I beseech you, my good lords, mistake me not, nor tliink me so proud that I will not crave Her Majesty's mercy ; for I protest, kneeling upon the very knee of my heart, I do crave it with all humility. Yet I had rather die than live in misery." Sentence having been pronounced, and the edge of the axe turned towards the prisoners, Essex said, " This body of mine might have done the queen better service, if it had so pleased her ; but fit it is that these poor quarters, which have done her true service in divers parts of the world, should be at her dis- posal ". He requested that Mr. Ashton, the minister who had been with him since his troubles began, might be allowed to attend him for his soul's health : asked pardon of Worcester and the lord chief justice, for having detained them in durance ; and besought the Lords Delaware and Morley to pardon them for their two sons, who were in trouble for his sake, — protesting, that when they came to him in the morning and he desired them to stay, they knew not what was to be done. Before he left the hall, he said, in reference to the declara- tion which had been read in court, that the persons who now accused him as having been their inciter, had in truth incited him to his attempt, and had ever since August been instigat- ing him to it The following day the Dean of Norwich (Dr. Dove, afterwards bishop of that see), being sent to him by the lords of the council, found him in a mood to justify wliat he 15 226 ENGLISH SEAMEN had done, rather than to express contrition ; saying passion- ately, "If you knew how many motions have been made to me to do my best for removing such evils as the commonwealth is burthened with, you would greatly wonder". The dean observed, that extraordinary attempts ought to have extra- ordinary warrants ; to which he replied, that he was Earl Marshal of England, and needed no other. But upon convers- ing with Ashton, "whether through the sting of his own conscience, or a terror stricken into him by this minister, he firmly apprehended that his soul would be lost, if he concealed any part of the truth, and did not discover those who were his accessories". In this state of mind, the day after his trial, he entreated that Her Majesty would be pleased to send to him the lords keeper, treasurer, and admiral, and also Mr. Secretary Cecil, that he might discharge his conscience to them, and ask forgiveness of the latter for having wronged him at the bar. They came accordingly on the morrow. A perfect reconcilia- tion with Cecil was made, it is said, in Christian charity on both sides. He made a full confession. He told them that the queen could never be safe as long as he lived, and made his humble suit that he might suffer privately in the Tower ; and charged some of the conspirators as men who intended the destruction of the country, — particularly naming his father-in-law Blount, and his two secretaries Cuffe and Temple. CufFe was by his desire brought to him ; and the earl ex- horted him to call to God and the queen for mercy, and to deserve it by declaring the truth : * " For I," said he, " who must now prepare for another world, have resolved to deal clearly with God and the world, and must needs say this to you, — you have been one of the chiefest instigators of me to all these my disloyal courses, into which I have fallen ". To this CufFe made no other reply, than by complaining of the earl's inconstancy, and betrayal of his most devoted friends. He afterwards wrote a full confession, on four sheets of paper,-]- beginning thus : — " Since that God of his mercy hath opened mine eyes, and made me see my sin, my offence ; and so touched my heart as I hate it both in myself and others, I will, as God shall enable my memory, set down how far we * Camden, 620. Birch, 473. + " This paper," Camden says, " being by his adversaries shown to King James, did afterwards much prejudice the reputation and esteem both of him and his friends." ROBERT DEVEREUX 227 are all guilty, and when, and by what degrees, our sin, this offence, grew ". When Essex made this full declaration of his designs, and implicated in the treason several persons on whom no suspicion had fallen, he must have given up not the hope merely, but the wish, that his life might be spared. The queen, who never before betrayed any want of firmness, was in extreme agitation now, and so irresolute whether to have the sentence carried into execution, that her inclination to spare him is beyond a doubt The countess addressed a supplication to her for mercy ; and a most affecting letter has been preserved, in which she entreated Cecil to join the other lords of the council in presenting it. It was in these words : — " Sir, — Although the answer I received from you two days since, gave me small encouragement to flatter myself that any importunity I could make should be able to appease the scandal you had conceived to be given you by my unfortunate husband ; yet, had it not pleased God to pour upon me one affliction after another, and to add to the immeasurable sorrows of my heart so violent a sickness as I am not able of myself to stir out of my bed, I had presented unto your view the image of the importunate widow mentioned in the Scriptures, and had never ceased to pester you with my complaines till you had afforded me some assurance that, whatsoever respects might dehort you from so much as wishing my husband's good, yet that an afflicted and woeful lady should not wholly lose her labour, or return desperate of such comforts as the last year you so honourably ministered unto me in a great affliction, though differing from this in quality. As I received then such noble courtesies from you, as must never be forgotten, — so be persuaded, I beseech you, that whatever new favour you shall now be pleased to add to the old, shall so lead me to reverence of your virtues, as I will resolve to reckon myself a bankrupt till I have yielded some demonstrative testimony of the best thankfulness that the honestest heart can express for the worthiest benefit. Honourable sir, I know there be private causes to discourage me from moving you hereon ; yet seeing the highest Providence hath placed you in a calling most proper to be a mean for my comfort, and that former experi- ence hath taught me that you are rather inclined to do good than to look alway to present interest ; I beseech you, even 228 ENGLISH SEAMEN for your virtues' sake, perform this noble office for me as to join with the rest of your lordships of the council in present- ing my humblest supplication to Her Majesty. Bear, sir, I pray you, with these tedious blots from this feeble hand and sad-sick heart, that is stored with much thankfulness and infinite best wishes unto you, who will ever rest, " Your more beholding poor distressed friend, "Fr. Essex." "And Mr. Secretary, even as you desire of God that your own son never be made orphan by the untimely or unnatural death of his dear father, vouchsafe a relenting to the not urging, if you may not to the hindering, of that fatal warrant for execution, which if it be once signed, I shall never wish to breathe one hour after." * If the other members of the council were willing to present the countess's petition, it may certainly be concluded that after the scene at the trial, and the subsequent interview at the Tower, Cecil would not refuse to join with them ; and it may also be presumed that, in the queen's state of mind, none of her counsellors would have urged her to let the law take its course, even if Essex had then had either character or popularity enough left to have been still considered dangerous. Camden, who had every means of being well informed, says, that Elizabeth had actually sent to stay the execution ; but that, because of his obstinacy in disdaining to ask for mercy, and of his declaration that she could never be safe while he lived, she despatched a counter-order. There is a well-known story, that she had once given him a ring, and an assurance with it, that whatever he might commit she would pardon upon his returning that pledge ; that the earl, jealous of those about him in the Tower, and not knowing whom to trust, threw it out of the window to a boy whose countenance pleased him, and promising a good reward, directed him to carry it to the Lady Scroop, and beg of her to present it to the queen : the boy by mistake took it to her sister, the lord admiral's wife ; and the lord admiral, being Essex's enemy. * Ellis's Original Letters, iii., 55. The original letter (in the Britisl^ Museum), Mr. Ellis says, is blotted and blurred with tears. ROBERT DEVEREUX 2«9 forbade her either to deliver the ring or return any answer to the message. The story proceeds to say, that Lady Notting- ham requested on her death-bed to see the queen, confessed this to her, and entreated her forgiveness ; and that Elizabeth answered, " God may forgive you, but I never can ! " left the room in the greatest emotion, and from that time never went to bed, nor took any sustenance, till her death, which ensued soon after the countess's. * Many writers have accredited this story, utterly improbable as it is in all its circumstances ; and in the principal one, — that of pledging herself by such a promise, — utterly inconsistent with the character of Queen Elizabeth. If Essex had possessed such a pledge, it is not likely that the love of life would have induced him to make use of it after his confession, believing as he did that he had then made his peace with God, and knowing that it would be impossible for him ever to make it with man. Upon Ash Wednesday, being the sixth day after the trial, he was brought out to execution within the courtyard of the Tower ; being thankful, he said, that he was to suffer privately, lest, if it had been a public spectacle, "the acclamations of the citizens should have hoven him up ". The Earls of Cumber- land and Hertford, Lord Howard of Bradon, Lord Thomas Howard, and Lords Darcy, Compton, and Moriey, were seated near the scaffold, with about a hundred knights and gentlemen. Raleigh was among them, that he might make answer if the earl objected anything to him ; but others imputed his coming to a worse motive ; and " being admonished not to press upon the earl at his death, which is the part rather of ignobler brutes, he withdrew into the armoury," and from thence, not having been seen by Essex, saw the execution. He incurred the imputation of inhumanity for this ; but he protested at his own death, that he had shed tears at the sight, and that this reproach had made his heart bleed. Essex was conducted to the scaffold by the lieutenant and sixteen partisans of the guard. He was dressed in a black satin suit, with a gown of wrought velvet, a black felt hat, and a little ruff about his neck. Mr. Ashton, who had moved him to confess his guilt ; Dr. Montford, who was afterwards successively Bishop of Rochester and London; and Dr. William Barton, who had preached at St. Paul s Cross in • Biog. Brit. 230 ENGLISH SEAMEN celebration of the taking of Cadiz ; accompanied him from his chamber, where they had passed the preceding night with him in devotion. He requested them not to leave him till the last ; but to observe him well ; and if either his eye, counten- ance, or speech should betray anything unbeseeming at such a time, to recall him to himself. Having ascended the scaffold, he waved his hat, and with obeisance to the lords spake thus : — " My lords, and you, my Christian brethren, who are to be witnesses of this my just punishment, I confess, to the glory of God, that I am a most wretched sinner ; and that my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head. I confess that 1 have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust, and uncleanness ; that I have been puffed up with pride, vanity, and love of this world's pleasures ; and that, notwith- standing divers good notions inspired into me from the Spirit of God, the good which I would, I have not done ; and the evil which I would not, that have I done. For all which I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon ; especially for this my last sin — this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin — whereby so many have, for love to me, been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us ; and to forgive it me, most wretched of all. I beseech Her Majesty, and the State, and ministers thereof, to forgive us ; and I beseech God to send Her Majesty a prosperous reign and a long, if it be His will. Lord ! grant her a wise and understanding heart. O Lord ! bless her, and the nobles and the ministers of the Church and State. And I beseech you and the world to hold a charitable opinion of me for any intention towards Her Majesty, whose death, I protest, I never meant, nor violence to her person. 1 never was, I thank God, atheist, not believing the Word and Scriptures ; neither papist, trusting to my own merits ; but hope for salvation from God only, by the mercy and merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ. This faith I was brought up in ; and herein I am ready to die, beseeching you all to join your souls with me in my prayer, for now I will give my- self to my private prayer : yet, for that I beseech you to join with me, I will speak that you may hear me." Dr. Montford then bade him remember to pray God to forgive his enemies, if he had any ; and the earl, thanking him for the admonition, turned again to the spectators and ROBERT DEVEREUX 281 said, "I desire all the world to forgive me, even as I do freely and from my heart forgive all the world ". Then putting off his gown and ruff, and kneeling down before the block, as Dr. Barton encouraged him against the fear of death, he answered, that having been divers times in places of danger, when death was neither so present, nor yet so certain, he had felt the weakness of the flesh, and therefore in this great conflict he desired God to assist and strengthen him ; and so, with eyes fixed on heaven, after some passionate pauses and breathings, he began his prayer in effect follow- ing :— " O God, Creator of all things, and Judge of all men. Thou hast let me know by warrant out of Thy word, that Satan is then most busy when our end is nearest, and that Satan, being resisted, will flee. 1 humbly beseech Thee to assist me in this my last combat ; and seeing Thou acceptest ever of our desires as of our acts, accept, I beseech Thee, of my desires to resist him, as of true resistance, and perfect by Thy grace what Thou seest in my flesh to be frail and weak. Give me patience to bear as becometh me, this just punish- ment inflicted upon me by so honourable a trial. Grant me the inward comfort of Thy Spirit. Let Thy Spirit seal unto my soul an assurance of Thy mercies. Lift my soul above all earthly cogitations ; and when my life and body shall part, send Thy blessed angels, which may receive ray soul, and convey it to Thy joys in heaven." He prayed next for all estates of the realm ; and concluded with the Lord's Prayer, and reiterating this petition, "Lord Jesus, forgive us our trespasses ! Lord Jesus, receive my soul ! " The executioner presented himself now, and on his knees asked his forgiveness : to which the earl replied, " I forgive thee. Thou art welcome to me : thou art the minister of justice." Then, at Dr. Montford's request, he rehearsed the Creed, repeating every article after him. This done, he put off his doublet, and appeared in a scarlet waistcoat, ready to lie down. The divine desired him to say these verses of the fifty-first psalm : " Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness : according to the multitude of Thy mercies, do away mine offences. Wash me throughly from my wicked- ness, and cleanse me from my sin." Inclining himself then, he said, "In humility and obedience to Thy commandment, in obedience to Thy ordinance, to Thy good pleasure, O God, 232 ENGLISH SEAMEN I prostrate myself to Thy deserved punishment. Lord be merciful to Tihy prostrate servant ! " And laying himself at length on the boards, and placing his head on the block, with these last words, ''Lord, into Thy hands I recommend my spirit," he gave the signal by spreading his arms, and his head was severed from his body at three strokes ; the first depriving him of all sense and motion.* Thus perished the celebrated Earl of Essex, the only man who ever possessed at the same time, in an equal degree, the favour of his sovereign and of the people : he relied vainly upon both ; and both failed him at last. The piety which he manifested during the concluding scene of this tragedy, was matter of scorn as well as surprise to the irreligious. Marshal Biron said of him contemptuously, that he had died more like a priest than a soldier : he himself suffered a like death not long afterwards for a like offence, and died neither like one nor the other, but like a desperate madman. The other principal persons who were tried and condemned for this conspiracy, were Blount, Dan vers, Davis, Merrick, and Cuffe. The two former were beheaded, as being of noble descent. Davis, after a year's imprisonment, obtained his pardon. Merrick and Cuffe suffered at Tyburn. Blount, at his execution, confessed the design which had been plotted in Ireland. Cuffe was the only one who attempted anything like an excuse of himself. Besides these, Lyttelton, Birnham, and Orell were brought to trial and condemned ; but Lyttel- ton gave Raleigh ] 0,000/. for obtaining his pardon ; Birnham also obtained a pardon by the same means, through the same channel ; and Orell was spared, — perhaps because it would have appeared iniquitous to execute the sentence upon him, who was in no respect more guilty. Southampton remained under sentence in the Tower, during the short remainder of Eliza- beth's reign ; he was then released and restored in blood. Under a more fearful or a weaker Government, Mountjoy would have been in danger. He had been of the earl's party, and though not engaged in any of his treasonable designs, he secretly provided means for escaping to France, being resolved, he said, not to put his neck under the file of the queen's attorney's tongue. At the same time he courted Cecil's favour, and applied for leave to go to England. The * Birch, 475-484. Camden, 622. ROBERT DEVEREUX 283 ground of accusation against him was, however, so weak, and he had shown such abihty in his arduous command, that " without great unthankfulness and popular obloquy, he could not have been questioned". The queen knew the value of such a man on that station ; she herself, in a gracious letter, informed him of the earl's death, and " to use her own words, professed that in regard of his approved fidelity and love, it was some alleviation of her grief to ejaculate the same to him ". And touching his application for leave to come over, she wished him to conceal his desire for a time, seeing that the Spanish ships which the traitors gave out were intended for Ireland, had not yet passed the narrow seas. In the winter she promised to call him home, and use his service near her person.* Essex's widow married the Earl of Clanrickard, and became in consequence a convert to a religion which required her to believe that Essex, and her first husband Sydney, and her father Walsingham, were doomed to everlasting torments. * Fynes Moryson, 89, 90. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 1552-1618 THE Raleigh family was one of the oldest in the west of England, and connected with the most illustrious in Christendom, '' its stream of consanguinity " having been traced up to the kings of England. Walter, in whom alone it has been perpetuated, was the fourth son of Walter Raleigh, Esq. of Fardel, in the parish of Corn wood, near Plymouth, by a third marriage. Catharine, his mother, was daughter of Sir Philip Champemon of Modbury, and relict of Otho Gilbert, Esq. of Compton, in Devonshire, by whom she had three sons — John, Humphrey, and Adrian — who all distinguished them- selves, and obtained the honour of knighthood. Mr, Raleigh resided, during his last marriage, upon a farm called Hayes, in the parish of Budley, near the mouth of the river Otter, " that wild streamlet of the west," upon whose banks so many distinguished men have been born. He had the remainder of an eighty years' lease of the estate, at the expiration of which it devolved to a Mr. Duke of Otterton. Sir Walter, who was then in prosperity, would fain have purchased it ; but his application to the owner failed of success, though he stated, as the motive which had induced him to apply for it, his natural ''disposition to the place" : "being born in that house," said he, " I had rather seat myself there than anywhere else ". The day of his birth is not known, but it was in 1552 — "a year," says an old astrologer, treating of his nativity, " remarkable in our chronicles ; first, for that strange shoal of the largest sea fishes, which, quitting their native waters for fresh and untasted streams, wandered up the Thames so high, until the river no longer retained any brackishness ; and (234) SIR WALTER RALEIGH 285 secondly, for that it is thought to have been somewhat stained in our annals with the blood of the noble Seymour, Duke of Somerset ; events surprisingly analogous both to the life of this adventurous voyager, whose delight was in the hazardous discovery of unfrequented coasts, and also to his unfortunate death ". Nothing more is known of his education, than that, about 1568, he was at Oxford, as a commoner of Oriel, "when his kinsman C. Champernon studied there ; and his natural parts being strangely advanced by academical learning under the care of an excellent tutor, he became the ornament of the juniors, and was worthily esteemed a proficient in oratory and philosophy ". This, however, has the air of an eulogium, founded upon the writer's notion of what was likely, rather than upon his knowledge; for Raleigh did not remain two years at the university. In 1569 Henry Champernon ob- tained the queen's permission to serve in aid of the Huguenots in France, with a troop of 100 volunteers, all gentlemen. Det miki virtusjinevi, was the motto on their standard. Raleigh was of the number ; and they were received with great dis- tinction by the Queen of Navarre and the French princes. He continued more than five years in that country, engaged in active service, which was to him a school of policy as well as of war. It is supposed that he escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, by taking refuge, as Sydney did, in the ambassador Walsingham's house, and that he returned to England in the ensuing year. There is reason to believe that he then took chambei's in the Middle Temple, but not as a student ; we have his own assertion that he never read a word of law or statutes before he was a prisoner in the Tower ; and his education has been said to have been, " not part but wholly gentleman, wholly soldier," — expressions which imply that his studies had never been directed towards any peaceful profession.* * According to Prince, " he betook himself to the Middle Temple, there to improve himself in the intricate knowledge of the municipal laws of his country. How long he continued there is uncertain ; yet sure it is he was there abiding in April, 1576, at what time his vein for ditty and amorous ode was esteemed most lofty, insolent, and passionate. By which it appears he was a gownsman by the space of about six years — but longer he must not be, for fate, it seems, would have him of the sword first. He took up the sword then, as what at that time did best befit his genius, and would soonest cut him out a way to preferment. To rise by his studies, ^36 ENGLISH SEAMEN He is said to have served next in the Low Countries under Sir John Norris, but nothing has been recorded of his ad- ventures there ; and he who has referred with pleasure to his experience in France, never alludes to this part of his life. There and in Ireland, "the slender pay," says one of his biographers, "was not encouragement sufficient to make him stay long in the service. Being restless and impatient of a narrow and low condition, and his merits not answered with a fortune strong enough to buoy up his reputation, he was resolved to leave no stone unturned, nor any method of living unexperimented ; and since his land expeditions could make no addition to his fortunes, novelty, and a desire of putting himself into a better capacity, urged him to a sea voyage." His uterine brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, was the first English colonel who took part in the Low Country wars ; but when the Spanish colonel, Mondragon, by one of the boldest enterprises that ever was achieved even by Spaniards in the days of their highest confidence, had entered South Beveland, by fording a branch of the Scheldt, and marching five hours in water over the Verdronkenland, to the relief of Goes, Sir Humphrey could not be persuaded to remain there longer, and left the country, in disgust with the Dutch, and with some discredit to himself* He was, how- ever, a brave and most adventurous man, and has the honour of having been the first Englishman who proposed and attempted to plant a colony in America. Accordingly he obtained from the queen letters patent, whereby she granted free liberty to him, his heirs and assigns for ever, to discover and take pos- session of any remote heathen and barbarous lands, not being actually possessed by any Christian prince or people ; such countries, and all cities, castles, towns, villages, and places in the same, with their rights, royalties, and jurisdictions, to be hold en by them of the crown by homage, and payment of a fifth of all the gold and silver ore that there should be at any probably his condition and ambition would not let him judge it the speediest course ; much time and a considerable fortune being often required in climbing up that way. He thought it more easy to fight, than to letter himself into a reputation ; active times and a busy war-like princess pointed him out the readiest way to the Temple of Honour. The sword he judged, with Alexander, the quickest instrument to master all the knots and tedious obstacles of greatness " {Worthies of Devon). * Sir Roger Williams. Somers' Tracts (Scott's edition), i., 337. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 237 time discovered. The grant was of papal magnitude, em- powering him to expel all persons of any country whatsoever, who, without his permission, should attempt to settle within 200 leagues of his country : and to the intent that the colonists " might with more pleasure and profit enjoy that whereunto they should have attained with great pain and peril, he and his representatives were invested with full power to govern them, as well in causes capital and criminal, as civil, both marine and other, taking care that his ordinances should be, as near as conveniently might be, agreeable to the laws and policy of England".* The commission was so extensive, and the privileges were so large, that " very many gentlemen of good estimation drew unto Sir Humphrey, to associate with him in so commendable an enterprise ". Raleigh had a twofold motive for embarking in it ; being so nearly related to the leader of the colony, and being desirous to become acquainted with maritime affairs, that he might be every way able to serve the queen and commonwealth, and advance his own fortunes. " The preparation was expected to grow into a puissant fleet, able to encounter a king's power by sea ; " and, indeed, it was no less than a king's power, and that king the mightiest of modem times, by which they might expect to be attacked wherever they were found. But "among a multitude of voluntary men," — some of them, no doubt, equal or superior to Sir Humphrey in pretensions, and connected with him only by the loose tie of inclination, — "their dispositions," says one of the adventurers, f " were divers, which bred a feud, and made a division in the end, to the confusion of the attempt even before it was begun. And when the shipping was in a manner prepared, and men ready upon the coast to go aboard, at that time some brake consort, and followed courses de- generating from the voyage before pretended ; others failed of their promises, and the greater number were dispersed, leaving the general with few of his assured friends." With those few he adventured to sea ; and the chronicler, John Hooker,;}; who was his kinsman, says, that even after this disappointment, success might have been confidently expected, if " the fleet had, according to appointment, followed him," or if he had * Hakluyt, iii., 135-137. t Edward Hayes, Hakluyt, iii., 146. X Alias Vowell. Epist. Ded. prefixed to his translation and continuation of the Chronicles of Ireland (Holinshed (last edition), vol. vi.). 238 ENGLISH SEAMEN " escaped the dangerous sea-fight, in which many of his company were slain, and his ships were battered and dis- abled". The result of that action was, that he was fain to put back " with the loss of a tall ship, and (more to his grief) of a valiant gentleman. Miles Morgan ; having buried only in a preparation, a great mass of substance whereby his estate was impaired ". Raleigh had now past ten years of severe apprenticeship to war, but not to war alone. He had been a severe student ; allowing himself, it is said, only five hours of the natural day for sleep, and devoting four to assiduous study. A weaker body would have broken down under what may be called this mental tyranny ; the mind was not overworked, and therefore it was the better able to bear such curtailment of wholesome, and what else would have been necessary sleep. The next field in which he tried his fortune, was the last which any man would have chosen who knew the nature of the warfare in which he was to be engaged. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, before he commenced his colonial adventures, had been appointed colonel in Munster,* by the lord deputy. Sir Henry Sydney, when that excellent person would have laid the foundations of civil order in Ireland. Probably through the connections which his brother still possessed in that country, Raleigh was employed as captain there during the government of Arthur Lord Grey, and " he appeared there with his own colours flying in the field ". It was a service at once the most arduous and the most hateful. War was, in that age, as little a school of honour and courtesy as of humanity or virtue, even among the most civilised nations, — so fiercely were the minds of men exasperated by civil and religious animosities. But in Ireland it was not possible that the soldier could derive improvement in his own profession, and scarcely possible that he should not have his heart hardened. It would be superfluous to follow the detail of Raleigh's Irish campaigns ; he distinguished himself by his courage and conduct, and by the generosity with which he risked his own life when his followers were in danger. When Sir James of Desmond was taken prisoner, Raleigh was one of the two officers, by whom, in virtue of the commission addressed to them, he was tried and condemned as a traitor.f It was his * Holinshed, vi., 408. t Ibid,, 432. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 239 ill-fortune to be employed upon a worse occasion. When the fort which the Spaniards had built at Smerwick * in the county of Kerry was reduced by Lord Grey, the garrison was put to the sword ; — not in the heat of the assault, for they laid down their arms, crying, Misericordia, misericordia ! — but by martial execution, . . as men who came with no commission from their own prince to make war in an enemy's country, but as private adventurers, to aid a people in rebellion. Raleigh and Captain Macworth were the officers who "had the ward of that day," and who consequently presided at the execution, or massacre. f The queen was greatly displeased, and " hardly admitted of the reasons " which Lord Grey urged in justification of himself. She detested from her heart such cruelty ; and undoubtedly she felt that, however just the principle, the English were the last people who ought to have proclaimed it. Raleigh was at this time courting the favour of the Earl of Leicester. In a letter to him, sent, it appears, by Sir Warham Saintleger, he writes thus : " I may not forget continually to * " St. Mary Wick, which the Irish contracted by calling Smerwick," (Camden). t Camden says the lord deputy ♦•advised with his officers what should be done with them. But in regard those who yielded, equalled the Eng- lish in number, and some danger threatened from the rebels, who were above 1500 strong at hand ; and the English were so destitute of victuals and apparel, that they were like to mutiny, unless they were relieved out of the fort by the spoil of the enemy ; and shipping was wanting to carry the enemy away ; it was concluded, against the mind of the lord deputy (who shed tears thereat), that the commanders should be saved, and the rest promiscuously put to the sword for a terror, and that the Irish should be hanged up ; which was presently put in execution " {History of Elizabeth, Eng. trans., 243, 4th edit.). This statement would exonerate Lord Arthur Grey of the fault, and lay it upon his officers. But I grieve to say that Spenser, at that time his secretary, was present at the siege, and that he justifies the massacre, thinking it sufficient to vindicate his Arthegal from the accusation of having broken faith with the Spaniards. He says they " absolutely yielded, and craved only mercy. Which it being not thought good to show them, for danger of them, if being saved, they should afterward join with the Irish ; and also for terror to the Irish, who are much em- boldened by those foreign succours, and also put in hope of more ere long; there was no other way but to make that short end of them as was made." Perhaps the part which Raleigh bore in this transaction may have made the Spanish government seek his life more from a feeling of revenge than for policy. 240 ENGLISH SEAMEN put your honour in mind of my affection unto your lordship, hav- ing to the world both professed and protested the same. Your honour having no use of such your followers, hath utterly forgotten me. Notwithstanding, if your lordship shall please to think me yours as I am, I will be found as ready, and dare do as much in your service, as any man you may command ; and do neither so much despair of myself, but that I may be some way able to perform as much. I have spent some time here under the deputy, in such poor place and charge, as were it not for that I knew him to be as if yours, I would disdain it as much as to keep sheep. 1 will not trouble your honour with the business of this lost land, for that Sir Warham Saint- leger can best of any man deliver unto your lordship the good, the bad, the mischief, the means to amend, and all in all, of this commonwealth, or rather, common- woe." It is evident by the tone of this letter, in which he recommends others to Leicester, that he counted upon the patronage of that powerful favourite ; and when, in consequence of some serious differences with the lord deputy, he left Ireland, it was to repair, no doubt in reliance of such patronage, to court. An accident, which is recounted by all his biographers, gave him an opportunity of recommending himself to the queen's notice. Coming to the court " in good habit," says Fuller, " (his clothes being then a considerable part of his estate), he found the queen walking, till meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon. Presently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush coat on the ground, whereon the queen trod gently, rewarding him afterwards with many suits, for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a foot cloth. Thus an advantageous admission into the first notices of a prince is more than half a degree to preferment." There is another story, which is not less probable, because it is not less in character with both the parties. Finding some hopes, it is said, of the queen's favours reflecting upon him, he wrote on a window, obvious to the queen's eye, this verse — " Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall ; " and Her Majesty, either espying, or being shown it, did under- write — " If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all." This is just the sort of encouragement that Elizabeth would have given; and the way in which she would have delighted SIR WALTER RALEIGH 241 to give it. However, says Fuller, he at last climbed up by the stairs of his own desert. The queen sent him to attend the Duke of Anjou's agent on his return to France, and afterward to escort Anjou himself to Antwerp, when the intended marriage was happily broken off. There he became known to the Prince of Orange ; and it has been surmised that the prince honoured him with some especial commands to Elizabeth, praying him to say when he delivered his letters. Sub umbrd alarum tuai-um proiegimur ; *' for certainly," says Raleigh, " they had withered in the bud, and sunk in the beginning of their navigation, had not Her Majesty assisted them ". The favour which he had now obtained, was enhanced by his demeanour when the matter in dispute between him and Lord Grey was brought before the council table, and each was called upon to plead his own cause in person. "What advantage," Sir Robert Naunton says, "he had in the case in controversy, I know not ; but he had much the better in the manner of telling his tale, insomuch as the queen and the lords took no slight mark of the man and his parts ; for from thence he came to be known, and to have access to the lords. And whether or no my Lord of Leicester had then cast in a good word for him to the queen, which would have done him no harm, I do not determine ; but true it is that he had gotten the queen's ear in a trice, and she began to be taken with his election, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands. And the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all ; yea, those that he relied on began to take this his sudden favour for an alarm, and to be sensible of their own supplantation, and to project his." As yet, however, Raleigh was more likely to excite the envy of aspirant courtiers, than the jealousy of those who were established either in favour or in office. And his prospects were so fair, that, adventurous as he was, the court was now to him a more alluring scene of ambition than the seas. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's jmtent was to expire at the end of six years from its date, unless possession were taken of the country to be colonised within that time. To prevent this lapse, greatly as his fortune had been impaired by the former failure, he found means to equip a second expedition, and, with the assistance of men of kindred spirit, collected five vessels ; one of these, of 200 tons, was fitted out by Raleigh at his own 16 242 ENGLISH SEAMEN expense, built by him, it is said, and called Bark Raleigh. Gilbert had been introduced to Queen Elizabeth, when a boy, by his aunt, Mrs. Catharine Ashley, who attended on the queen's person, and was much in her favour. That queen, who seldom failed to distinguish merit, bestowed on him the most encouraging notices from time to time : she knighted him ; she gave him one of her maids of honour in marriage ; and upon his preparing for the voyage, sent him a golden anchor with a large pearl at the beak, which he ever after wore at his breast, as a singular honour. This jewel was conveyed through Raleigh's hands. In the letter which went with it, Raleigh says, " Brother, I have sent you a token from Her Majesty — an anchor, guided by a lady, as you see. And further. Her Highness willed me to send you word, that she wished you as great a good hap and safety to your ship, as if she herself were there in person, desiring you to have care of yourself as of that which she tendereth ; and therefore for her sake you must provide for it accordingly. Further she commandeth that you leave your picture with me. For the rest, I leave till our meeting, or to the report of this bearer, who would needs be the messenger of this good news. So I commit you to the will and protection of God, who sends us such life or death as he shall please or hath appointed." * It was held in this country, that England had acquired a clear right to the whole of America, from the Cape of Florida north- ward, by the privilege of first discovery ; and that the French and Spaniards had been unfortunate in their attempts to settle in those parts, was taken as an indication that Providence would not permit them, " to establish a possession permanent upon another's right". The serious public (as such persons would now call themselves) conjectured also, by what they deemed infallible arguments of the world's end approaching, that those parts of the world were "now arrived unto the time, by God prescribed, of their vocation, if ever their calling unto the knowledge of God might be expected " ; and this they deemed the more probable ''by the revolution and course of God's word and religion, which from the beginning hath moved from the East towards, and at last unto the West, where it is like to end". The desire of propagating their religion influenced the Spaniards and Portuguese in their con- * Cayley, i., 47. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 243 quests, little less than it influenced the companions and followers of Mohammed: it was as fierce a principle, and served as a covering for as many crimes ; but in many, . . very many, . . individuals, beyond all doubt, it was a re- deeming and sanctifying feeling. How far it entered into the motives of Gilbert and those who enabled him to fit out his expedition, it would be presumptuous to say ; but the right- minded seamen who has left a relation of this voyage, warns men, "to be well advised how they handle such high and excellent matters as the carriage of God's word into those mighty and vast countries ; an action," he says, " not to be intermeddled with base purposes, as many have made it a colour to shadow actions otherwise scarce justifiable, which doth excite God's heavy judgments in the end, to the terrify- ing of weak minds from the cause, without pondering his just proceedings ; and doth also incense foreign princes against our attempts, how just soever, who cannot but deem the sequel very dangerous unto their state (if in those parts we should grow to strength), seeing the very beginnings are entered with spoil ".* Raleigh might have learnt a salutary lesson from these reflections on his brother's fate. Bark Raleigh was very much the largest vessel in this expedition ; the others were one of 1 20 tons, two of 40, and one of 20 — in such slight vessels were the most arduous voyages undertaken by the hardy seamen of that age. The men were about 260 ; among whom there was " of every faculty good choice ; as shipwrights, masons, carpenters, smiths, and such like, requisite to such an action ; also mineral men, and refiners ". But there were also among them, many who had been taken as pirates in the narrow seas, and engaged forthwith in this service instead of being hanged according to their deserts. Gilbert was "so unfortunately encumbered with wants, and worse matched with many ill- disposed people, that his rare judgment, and regiment pre- meditated for those affairs, was subjected to tolerate abuses, and in sundry extremities to hold on a course more to uphold credit, than likely in his own conceit happily to succeed ". . . " For solace of our people," says Captain Hayes, "and allure- ment of the savages, we were provided of music in good variety, not omitting the least toys, as morris-dancers, hobby-horse, * Hayes, in Hakluyt, iii., 145. 244 ENGLISH SEAMEN and May-like conceits to delight the savage people, whom we intended to win by all fair means possible. And to that end we were indifferently furnished of all haberdashery wares to barter with those simple people."* Had the expedition been ready sooner in the season, it would have taken a southern course and made immediately for Cape Florida ; but before they could sail, so much of their stores had been spent, that Gilbert, whose means were probably exhausted, was constrained to sail first for Newfoundland, where he knew supplies in abundance might be obtained from the ships employed in the fishery. They sailed on the 11th of June : on the 1 3th, Bark Raleigh hailed her companions with information that her captain and many of her men were fallen sick : in consequence, she left them that night, put back, and as it was afterwards credibly reported, arrived, with a con- tagious sickness on board, and greatly distressed, at Plymouth. The reason Hayes says he could never understand ; but he adds, " Sure I am no cost was spared by their owner. Master Raleigh, in setting them forth ; therefore I leave it unto God ". " The othei-s proceeded on their way, not a little grieved with the loss of the most puissant ship in their fleet."-}- The cod-fishery on the banks of Newfoundland had then become " the most famous of the world ". Sometimes more than a hundred sail were at once engaged in it, chiefly Portuguese and French ; and during the season, " a man might know, without sounding, when he had reached the place, by the incredible number of sea-fowl hovering over it to prey upon the offal and garbage of fish thrown out by the fishermen and floating upon the sea ". They preferred the prey to the pursuit ; Man thinks himself the lord of inferior creatures ; bnt he is never so prompt, and seldom so prudent in availing himself of their operations, as they are in profiting by his. Two of the fleet had parted company on the way in a fog : one of them, the Swallow, they found in the Bay of Conception ; " her men altered into other apparel, whereof it seemed their store was so amended, that for joy and congratulation of this meeting, they spared not to cast up into the air and overboard their caps and hats in good plenty ". This was a pirate ship, and the chief part of her crew were pirates who had been taken in her. After parting company they had fallen in with * Hakluyt, iii., 148. ^ Ibid., 149. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 245 a homeward-bound Newfoundlander ; and being " very near scanted of victual and clothing," they asked permission of the captain to go on board that vessel, only to borrow what might be spared. " Leave given, not without charge to deal favour- ably, they rifled the ship of tackle, sails, cables, and victuals, and the men of their apparel ; not sparing by torture to draw out what else they thought good." This done, as they took their cock-boat in haste to return to their own ship, it was swamped, and seven of these miscreants perished ; the rest were preserved even by those silly souls whom they had just spoiled, who saved and delivered them aboard the Swalloiv. " What," says Captain Hayes, " became afterwards of the poor Newfoundlanders, perhaps destitute of cash and furniture sufficient to carry them home (whither they had not less to run than 700 leagues), God alone knoweth." * The other vessel Gilbert found lying at anchor off the harbour of St. John's, "whom the English merchants that were always admirals by turns over the fleet there, would not permit to enter ". Expecting, therefore, some opposition to his purpose, he made ready for action, but at the same time despatched a boat to give notice that he came with a com- mision from Her Majesty and had no ill intent. There were six and thirty sail there of all nations ; they had properly regarded with suspicion the appearance of an armed vessel ; but now when the Admiral struck, " by great oversight," on a rock in the very entrance, they came with great readiness to his assistance, saved his ship, acknowledged his authority, and fired a salute to welcome him. The first act of his Government was to tax all the ships at an easy rate for his own supply. To this the Portuguese, it is said, above other nations, did willingly and liberally contribute ; so that the men were " pre- sented, above their allowance, with wines, marmalades, most fine rusk or biscuit, sweet oil, and sundry delicacies ".f The merchants and masters of all nations were now sum- moned to hear his commission read and witness his consequent proceedings : it was interpreted to the foreigners ; and by virtue of these powers he took possession of the harbour and country for 200 leagues every way, "invested the queen's majesty with the title and dignity thereof, and had delivered unto him, after the custom of England, a rod and a turf of the *Hakluyt, iii., 151. t /fetVf, 246 ENGLISH SEAMEN same soil, entering possession also for him, his heirs and assigns for ever ". At the same time he appointed three laws to be immediately in force : the first for religion, which in public exercise was to be according to the Church of England ; the second for maintenance of the queen's " right and posses- sion of those territories, against which if anything were attempted prejudicial, the parties offending should be adjudged and executed as in case of high treason, according to the law of England ; the third, that if any person should utter words sounding to the dishonour of Her Majesty, he should lose his ears, and have his ship and goods confiscate". A wooden pillar was then erected near the spot, and the arms of England, engraven in lead, fixed upon it. After this, to establish the queen's possession, and also in his own behoof. Sir Humphrey granted in fee farm divers parcels of land lying by the water side, which were to those who obtained them " a great commodity," for they were thus " assured by their proper inheritance of grounds convenient to dry their fish," — such ground having hitherto been occupied by the first comer. For this they covenanted to pay a certain rent and service to him, his heirs or assigns for ever, and yearly to maintain possession of the same.* While the better men were seriously occupied in repairing and trimming the ships, laying in stores, and searching the commodities and singularities of the country ; others were plotting mischief; some casting to steal away the shipping by night, in which design they were detected ; some drew together in company, and carried out of an adjacent harbour a ship laden with fish, setting the poor men on shore ; many more took to the woods, attending time and means to return home ; some were sick, and many died, and many were licensed to return ; so that when the general purposed to pursue his voyage, there were not hands enough for his fleet, and he determined to leave the Swallow for transporting home the sick. This reduced his squadron to three sail, and he made choice to go in the Squirrel!, as more convenient than a larger vessel for exploring the coast, and searching into every harbour and creek. This frigate therefore (so it was called), of ten tons, was "prepared with her nettings and fights, and over- charged with bases and such small ordnance, more to give a *Haklujrt, iii„ 151, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 247 show, than with judgment to foresee unto her safety". By the liberality of the Portuguese, all their wants were as com- modiously supplied as if they had been in some city populous and plentiful of all things.* Thus provided, they sailed on the 20th of August from the harbour of St. John's ; Sir Humphrey himself in such hopes from a sample of silver ore which his German miner had discovered, that he doubted not to borrow 10,000/. of the queen, for his next voyage, upon the credit of this mine. Eight days they trended along the coast toward Cape Breton. The wind came south on the 28th, and they bare with the land all that night, contrary to the judgment of Master Cox, of the Golden Hind ; but the Admiral led the way. Maurice Browne, his captain, had taken with him into that ship his men from the Swallow who had been engaged in piracy on their way out ; and this crew by no contradiction could be brought to hold another course, alleging that they could not make the ship work better, or lie otherwise. '* The evening," says Edward Hayes, who was captain and owner of the Golden Hind, " was fair and pleasant, yet not without token of storm to ensue ; and most part of this Wednesday night, like the swan that singeth before her death, they in the Admiral con- tinued sounding of trumpets with drums and fifes, also winding the comets and hautboys, and in the end of their jollity, left with the battle and ringing of doleful knells. Thursday the wind rose and blew vehemently at south and by east, bringing withal rain and thick mist, so that we could not see a cable's length before us. And betimes in the morning we were altogether run and folded in amongst flats and sands, amongst which we found shoal and deep in every three or four ships' length, after we began to sound : but first we were upon them unawares, until Master Cox looking out, discerned (in his judgment) white cliffs, crying land withal, though we could not afterwards descry any land, it being very likely the break- ing of the sea white, which seemed to be white cliffs, through the haze and thick weather. f " Signal to cast about to seaward was instantly made to the Admiral, which, though the greater ship, being of 120 tons, was yet foremost upon the breach, keeping so ill watch that they knew not the danger, before they felt the same, too late * Hakluyt, 154. flbid., iii., 156. 248 ENGLISH SEAMEN to recover it. They in the other vessels saw her strike, and her stem presently beaten to pieces ; whereupon," says Hayes, "the frigate in which was the general, and the Golden Hind cast about, even for our lives, into the wind's eye, because that way carried us to the seaward. Making out from this danger, we sounded one while seven fathom, then five, then four and less ; again deeper, immediately four fathom, then but three, the sea going mightily and high. At last we re- covered (God be thanked !) in some despair to sea-room enough. All that day, and part of the night, we beat up and down, as near unto the wreck as was possible, but all in vain. This was a heavy and grievous event, to lose our chief ship, freighted with great provision ; but worse was the loss of our men, to the number of almost a hundred souls : amongst whom was drowned a learned man, an Hungarian, born in the city of Buda, called thereof Budaeus, who, out of piety and zeal to good attempts, adventured in this action, minding to record, in the Latin tongue, the gests and things worthy of remem- brance happening in this discovery to the honour of our nation. Here, also, perished our Saxon refiner and discoverer of in- estimable riches. Maurice Browne, the captain, when advised to shift for his life in the pinnance, refused to quit the ship, lest it should be thought to have been lost through his default. * With this mind he mounted upon the highest deck, where he attended imminent death and unavoidable, — how long," says Hayes, " I leave it to God, who withdraweth not his comfort from his servant at such time." Twelve men made their way back in a small pinnace to Newfoundland, two having perished on the way of cold and hunger. The people now lost courage ; the weather continued thick and blustering, with increase of cold, winter drawing on ; and they in the frigate besought the general to make for England before they should all perish. They made signs of distress to the Golden Hind, " pointing to their mouths and to their clothing, thin and ragged ". The crew there also joined in the desire to return home, and Sir Humphrey yielded to their wish, having " compassion upon his poor men, in whom he saw no lack of good-will, but of means fit to perform the action they came for". Therefore, calling the captain and master of the Hind, he represented to them the necessity of * Hakluyt, 156-157. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 249 returning, saying, " Be content ; we have seen enough. And take no care of expenses past : I will set you forth royally the next spring, if God send us safe home. Let us no longer strive here, where we fight against the elements." So, on the last day of August, they changed their course, the wind being large for England, but very high, and the sea rough, insomuch that the frigate was almost swallowed up. After weathering a sharp storm. Sir Humphrey came aboard the Hind "to make merry". He continued there from morning till night, "lamenting greatly the loss of his great ship, more of the men, but most of all his books and notes ; and what else," says Captain Hayes, " I know not, for which he was out of measure grieved : the same, doubtless, being some matter of more importance, which I could not draw from him ; yet, by circumstances, I gathered the same to be the ore which Daniel the Saxon had brought to him in the New-found-land. Whatsoever it was, the remembrance touched him so quick, as not being able to contain him- self, he beat his boy in great rage, ever so long after the miscarrying of the ship ; because, upon a fair day, when he was becalmed, he sent his boy aboard the Admiral to fetch certain things, amongst which this, being chief, was yet for- gotten and left behind : after which time he could never conveniently send again. Herein my opinion was better confirmed by sundry conjectures ; for whereas he had never before good conceit of these north parts, now his mind was wholly fixed upon the New-found-land ; and as before he refused not to grant assignments liberally, now he became contrarily affected, refusing to make any so large grants. Also, laying down his determination for the voyage to be reattempted in the spring following, he assigned the captain and master of the Golden Hind unto the south discovery, and reserved unto himself the north, affirming that this voyage had won his heart from the south, and that he was now become a northern man altogether." At this time Sir Humphrey was full of hope, thanking God for what he had seen, which he said would be enough for them all, and confidently expecting that, on the report of his good tidings, the queen would lend him money enough, and he should "need ask a penny of no man". He was now urged to remain in the Hind, instead of persisting in his pur- pose of going through in the frigate, which was overcharged 250 ENGLISH SEAMEN with fights, nettage, and small artillery, " too cumbersome for so small a boat, that was to pass through the ocean-sea at that season. But when he was entreated thus, this was his answer, ' I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils'. In very truth," says his friend, "he was urged to be so overhardy by hard reports given of him, that he was afraid of the sea ; albeit this was rather rashness than advised resolution, to prefer the word of a vain report to the weight of his own life. Seeing he would not bend to reason, he had provision out of the Hind ; and so we committed him to God's protection, and set him aboard his pinnace, we being more than ,300 leagues onward of our way home." On the 9th of September, while they were contending with " foul weather and terrible seas, breaking short and high, pyramid-wise, — men which all their life had occupied the sea never saw it more outrageous,"— the frigate was nearly cast away ; yet at that time she recovered ; and, giving forth signs of joy, the general, sitting abaft, with a book in his hand, cried out unto those in the Hind, as often as they approached within hearing, " We are as near to heaven by sea as by land ! " That same night, about midnight, the frigate being ahead, her lights suddenly disappeared, and the watch cried the general was cast away, "which was too true, the frigate having at that moment been swallowed up". On the 22nd, the Hind, in great torment of weather and peril of drowning, arrived at Falmouth.* Sir Humphrey Gilbert is called by Campbell one of the worthiest men of that age, whether we regard the strength of his understanding or his heroic courage ; the parent, in a manner, of all our plantations, being the first who introduced a legal and regular method of settling, without which such undertakings must necessarily prove unsuccessful. Besides, the treatise which he published in 1576, of the northwest passage, was the ground of all the expectation which the best seamen had for many years of finding such a route to the East Indies. His friend Hayes, rendering justice to a purpose so " honest and godly, as that of reducing to Christian piety those remote and heathen countries not actually pos- sessed by Christians, and most rightly appertaining to the * Hakluyt, i., 401. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 251 crown of England/' taxes him, nevertheless, with temerity and presumption : first, for being too prodigal of his own patrimony and too careless of other men's expenses, while there w;is only a probability, and not a certain and determinate plan, of habitation ; and for holding out (as he supposed) a promise to his associates, that, if their primary object failed, they should be saved some other way, of which they made their best reckoning ; and because of which, in Hayes's judgment, it pleased God not to prosper his first and great preparation. After that failure, "as it were, impatient to abide in expectation better opportunity and means which God might raise, he thrust himself again into the action, for which he was not fit, presuming the cause, pretended in God's behalf, would carry him to the desired end. Into which having thus made re-entry, he could not yield again to withdraw, though he saw no encouragement to proceed, lest his credit, foiled in his first attempt, in a second should utterly be disgraced. Between extremities he made a right adventure, putting all to God and good fortune ; and, which was worst, refused not to entertain every person and means whatsoever to furnish out the expedition. But, such is the infinite bounty of God, who from evil deriveth good : for, besides that fruit may grow in time of our travelling into those northward lands, the crosses, turmoils, and afflictions, both in the preparation and execution of this voyage, did correct the intemperate humours in this gentleman which made unsavoury his manifold virtues ; then, as he was refined, and made nearer drawing unto the image of God, it pleased the Divine will to receive him to himself."* Camden speaks of Sir Humphrey Gilbert as teaching others what he learned too late himself, — "that it is a difficulter thing to carry over colonies unto remote countries upon private men's purses than he and others, in erroneous cre- dulity, had persuaded themselves, to their own cost and detriment". Raleigh, however, was one of those who are so thoroughly possessed by the spirit of adventure that they neither learn to be wise by others' harms nor by their own. Only a few months after the fate of his brother and the failure of the Newfoundland project was known, he obtained letters patent for another enterprise of the same kind, on the same terms and in the same words as those which had been * * Hakluyt, i6o, 252 ENGLISH SEAMEN granted to Sir Gilbert. Among the persons of great worth as well as substance who engaged with him in this undertaking, Sir Richard Greenville and Mr. William Saunderson are named. Two barques, under Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow, were sent to explore some undiscovered part of America, north of the Gulf of Florida, and look out a favour- able situation for the proposed colony. Having sailed along the coast 120 miles, before they could find any entrance or river, they anchored in the first that appeared, a little within the haven's mouth ; and there, in the usual form, took posses- sion of the land for Her Majesty as rightful queen and princess thereof, and then delivered it over to Raleigh's use, according to the queen's letters. This proved to be the island of Wocoton. After some friendly intercourse with the natives, and with Granganimeo, whom they understood to be brother to King Wingina of Wingandacoa, Barlow and seven com- panions proceeded twenty miles, by what they supposed to be a river, called Occam by the Indians, "and running toward the city of Skicoak," but which was what is now called Pamlico Sound, through which they came to the island of Roanoak, near the mouth of Albemarle Sound. No mis- adventure of any kind having occurred during this short tarriance, they returned to England by the middle of Septem- ber, and gave a florid account of their good fortune. Nothing could be more delightful, more fruitful, more plentiful, than the country. It was " so full of grapes that the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them " : there was such plenty, " both on the sand and on the green soil, on the hills and in the plains, as well on every little shrub as climbing towards the top of high cedars, that I," says one of the captains, " think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found ; and myself, having seen those parts of Europe that most abound, find such difference as were incredible to be written". The woods were full of deer, conies, hares, and fowls, even in the midst of summer, in incredible abundance. The cedars, "the highest and reddest in the world," far ex- ceeding those of the Azores, of the Indies, or Lebanon. Among the trees "of excellent smell and quality," was that which "beareth the rind of black cinnamon". The inhabi- tants were represented in as flattering colours as the country : they were "very handsome and goodly people, in their be- haviour as mannerly and civil as any of Europe". "No SIR WALTER RALEIGH 253 people in the world carried more respect to their king, nobility, and governors." A more kind, gentle, loving, and faithful people could not be found : they were void of all guile and treason, and lived after the manner of the Golden Age. The writer was not afraid any incongruity would be perceived when he adds, that they had a mortal malice against a certain neighbouring nation ; that their wars were very cruel and bloody ; and that by reason thereof, and of civil dissensions which had happened of late years amongst them, the people were marvellously wasted, and in some places the country left desolate.* The queen was so well pleased with this account of Wing- andacoa, as they supposed the country to be called, that she gave it the name of Virginia; "as well," says Lediard,"f- " because it was first discovered in her reign as a virgin queen, as because it did still seem to retain the virgin purity and plenty of the first creation, and the people their primitive innocence. For they seemed not debauched nor corrupted with those pomps and vanities which had depraved and enslaved the rest of mankind ; neither were their hands hardened by labour, nor their minds corrupted by the desire of hoarding up treasure. They were without boundaries to their land, without property in cattle ; and seemed to have escaped, or rather not to have been concerned in, the first curse of getting their bread by the sweat of their brow, for by their pleasures alone they supplied all their necessities, — that is, by fishing, fowling, and hunting ; skins being their only clothing, and these laid aside by far the greater part of the year ; living without labour, and only gathering the fruits of the earth when ripe, or fit for use ; nor fearing present want, nor solicitous for the future, but daily finding sufficient afresh for their sustenance." As if any / portion of the human race had ever, at any time, in any part^ of the world, existed under such circumstances ! But in all ages men are easily deceived, and easily deceive others. Raleigh was not scrupulous in holding out fallacious allurements to other adventurers, and he was ready to hazard his own means as lightly as he had acquired them. At this time he was prospering both in favour and fortune ; he had been chosen, with Sir Willliam Courtenay, to represent their native county in Parliament ; had been knighted by Elizabeth, * Hakluyt, iii., 246-251. f Vol. i., 202. 254 ENGLISH SEAMEN frugal as she was in the distribution of honours ; and had ob- tained from her a grant of 12,000 acres from the forfeited estates in the counties of Cork and Waterford,"'*^ and a patent for licensing -|- the vendors of wines throughout the kingdom — one of those monopolies which were both grievances and scandals. The queen's motive in granting him this was, that he might be the better enabled to pursue his schemes of discovery and colonisation. Accordingly, this year he engaged in two adventures. One was for the discovery of the north- west passage, the setting forth of which was committed to " Mr. William Sanderson, merchant J of London, who was so forward therein, that, besides his travail, which was not small, he became the greatest adventurer with his purse". This hazardous expedition was undertaken with a barque of fifty tons, called the Sunshine of London, and another of twenty-five, called the Moonshine of Dartmouth ; the first carrying twenty- three persons, of whom four were musicians, the second nineteen. John Davis, "a man very well grounded in the principles of the art of navigation, was captain and chief pilot". This famous seaman called Greenland the Land of Desolation ; gave the name of Mount Raleigh to a brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as bright as gold ; left his own more durably connected with the strait which he discovered ; and returned with an opinion that everything which he had observed rendered the passage probable. In the same year Raleigh ventured a larger outlay upon his Virginian scheme. Here there seemed fewer difficulties to overcome, and the adventurers might hope to repay them- selves by privateering upon the Spaniards on the way. Sir Richard Greenville had the command of the expedition, which consisted of seven sail. He left a colony there of 1 00 men.§ * These lands he planted at his own expense, and, at the end of the queen's reign, sold to Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Cork, who owns this purchase to have been the first step to "his vast fortune" {Sir Egerton Brydges). t This involved him in a dispute with the University of Cambridge, the particulars of which may be found in Strype s Annals (1585), chapter xxvii. Mr. Cayley bestows some hard words upon the university on this occasion, where they were not called for. The question was concerning a point of law, and it was decided against Raleigh. X A globe-maker Lediard calls him, i., 222. §See vol. iii., pp. 197, 329-332. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 255 Raleigh, at liis own charge,* sent a ship of 100 tons with supplies for them the ensuing year ; but before it arrived the settlers and the Indians had become too well acquainted with each other to continue at peace ; imprudence and misconduct on one part, and treachery and cruelty on the other, had brought great cals^mities on both ; and the survivors of the colony thought themselves happy when Drake opportunely came upon that coast, and gave them a passage home.-j- Greenville arrived with three ships to reinforce and store them a fortnight after their departure. In their eagerness to escape they had left no tidings of themselves, and he could hear none ; but being unwilling to lose possession of the country, he landed fifteen men in the isle of Roanoak, furnished them plentifully with all manner of provision for two years, and departed for England. This had been made a saving, if not a profitable voyage, by prizes taken from the Spaniards on the way out and home, and by landing upon some of the Azores on their return, and " spoiling some of the towns of all such things as were worth carriage ". Sir Walter then fitted out a third expedition, of three sail, with 1 50 colonists, under the charge of John White, to whom, with twelve chosen persons, he gave a charter, incorporating them by the name of governor and assistants of the city of Raleigh in Virginia. They sailed in April ; and, having narrowly escaped shipwreck through the error and carelessness of their naval commander, arrived at Hatorask in the latter end of June. White, with forty of his best men, went then aboard the pinnace, intending to pass up to Roanoak and seek for the fifteen settlers whom Greenville had left there the preceding year. His intention was, when he should have learned from them on what terms they were with the savages, to return to the fleet, coast along to the Chesapeake, and there make his seat and fort, according to the written instructions which he had received from Raleigh. But no sooner had he put off than the sailors were hailed from the ship, and ordered not to bring back any person except the governor, and two or three such as he approved ; for the summer being far spent, the master would land all the colon- * Lediard (i., 225), says that Raleigh went himself in this ship. This is not likely ; and there is nothing in Hakluyt or Smith to support it. t Hakluyt, iii., 261. 256 ENGLISH SEAMEN ists there, and proceed no farther. As the sailors took part with the master, it booted not the governor to contend. He landed at sunset in the place where the fifteen men were left, but '' found none of them, nor any sign that they had been there, saving only the bones of one of them, whom the savages had slain long before ". Next day they walked to the west side of the island, where " Ralph Lane had had his fort, with sundry necessary and decent dwelling-houses made by his men. When we came thither," says the writer, ''we found the fort rased down, but all the houses standing unhurt ; saving that the nether rooms of them, and also of the fort, were overgrown with melons of divers sorts, and deer within them feeding on the melons." Order was given to repair these houses and construct others.* While they were thus employed, George Howe, who was one of the twelve assistants, strayed some two miles from his company, where a party of savages espied him, wading almost naked in the water, and catching crabs with a small forked stick. " They shot at him, gave him sixteen wounds with their arrows, and, after they had slain him with their wooden swords, they beat his head in pieces, and fled over the water to the main." The governor had brought with him an Indian, Manteo by name, the survivor of two whom Captain Amadas had taken to England. A party was now sent with this interpreter to the isle of Croatoan, where his kindred dwelt ; and upon his assurance that the coming of the English was ''only to renew the old love which had been between them at the first, and to live with them as brethren and friends," a good understanding was established. It was learned from these Indians, that the men whom Greenville had left were treacherously attacked by some of the hostile natives, and two having been killed, and their storehouse set on fire, the remainder made their way, fighting, to the water side, and escaped in their boat ; but whither was not known, nor was it ever heard what had become of them. Manteo's friends earnestly desired that a distinct badge might be given them. Lane's people having attacked and wounded some of them by mistake, for want of one. That request should have made the English cautious. They, however, thinking to revenge the death of their own comrade, and the attack * Hakluyt, 283. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 257 made upon the last settlers, secretly crossed the water ; and coming to the settlement of their enemies before daybreak, they fell upon the people whom they found there. "The miserable souls, herewith amazed, fled into some thick reeds growing fast by, where our men perceiving them, shot one through the body ; and therewith we entered the reeds," says one of the party, " among which we hoped to acquit their evil doing toward us ; but we were deceived, for those savages were our friends, and were come from Croatoan to gather the corn and fruit of that place, because they understood our enemies were fled immediately after they had slain George Howe, and for haste had left all their com, tobacco, and pom- pions standing in such sort, that all had been devoured by the birds and deer if it had not been gathered in time. But they had like to have paid dearly for it ; for it was so dark that if one of their wives had not had a child at her back she had been slain for a man ; and, as hap was, another savage knew Master Stafford, and went to him, calling him by his name, whereby he was saved." * And now, according to Raleigh's instructions, " Manteo was christened in Roanoak, and called lord thereof, and of Dasa- monguepeuk, in reward of his faithful services ". And the wife of Ananias Dare, one of the assistants, being delivered of a daughter, the child being the first Christian born in that country, was baptised by the name of Virginia. By this time the ships had unladen the goods and stores of the planters, and were taking in wood and water for their return. It was thought expedient that two of the assistants should go back as factors for the company ; but all had come out with so firm an intention of settling there, that none could be induced to undertake this office. At length the whole company, both of assistants and planters, came to the governor, and with one voice requested him to return himself, for the better and sooner obtaining of supplies and other necessaries for them. But he refused, and alleged many sufficient causes why he would not : one was, " that he could not so suddenly return back without his great discredit, leaving the action, and so many whom he had partly procured by his persuasion to leave their native country ; that the enemies to him and the action would not spare to slander him, by saying that he went ♦ Hakluyt, 284. 17 258 ENGLISH SEAMEN to Virginia for no other end but politicly to lead so many into a country in which he never meant to stay himself". It appears by another of his reasons, that he had not quite so much reliance upon the probity of the colonists as they seem to have had upon his ; for he " also alleged that, seeing they intended presently to remove fifty miles farther up into the main, he being absent, his goods might be spoiled, and most of it pilfered in the carriage ; so that, at his return, he should either be forced to provide himself again, or find himself utterly unfurnished, whereof already he had found some proof, being but once from them but three days ". Whereupon he concluded that he would not go himself. The next day, how- ever, they renewed their request, and he yielded to their "extreme entreaty," upon their giving him a bond, under all their hands and seals, for the safe preserving of all his goods, and also this testimony to secure him against all reproach : — "May it please you Her Majesty's subjects of England, we, your friends and countrymen, tlie planters in Virginia, do by these presents let ^you, and every of you, to understand, that for the present and speedy supply of certain our known and apparent lacks and needs, most requisite and necessary for the good and happy planting of us, or any other in this land of Virginia, we all, of one mind and consent, have most earnestly entreated and incessantly r^ifested John White, governor of the planters in Virginia, to pass into England, for the better and more assured help and setting forward of the foresaid supplies, and knowing assuredly that he both can best, and will labour and take pains in that behalf for us all ; and he, not once but often, refusing it, for our sakes and for the honour and maintenance of the action hath at last, though much against his will, yielded to leave his Government and all his goods among us, and himself in all our behalfs to pass into England : of whose knowledge and fidelity in handling this matter, as all others, we do assure ourselves by these presents, and will you to give all credit thereunto ". After many mishaps and a miserable voyage. White reached England in November, at an unlucky time for the colonists whom he had left. The danger of a Spanish invasion was then so imminent, that all the naval strength of the country was required for its defence ; and when Raleigh was preparing supplies, which Greenville was to have taken out, that brave officer was ordered not to proceed to sea with them. White, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 259 however, so urgently represented the necessity of the case, that two small pinnaces were despatched with stores and fifteen planters. Instead of pursuing their voyage they thought proper to cruise for prizes, till two men-of-war from Rochelle disabled and rifled them, and obliged them to put back for England. Raleigh, who had now, it is said, expended 40,000/. upon this attempt at colonisation, was either unable to persist in the adventure, or impatient of waiting for the slow returns which could be expected from a country in which neither gold nor silver had been found. He, therefore, as- signed over his patent to a company of merchants, giving, at the same time, 100/. "in especial regard and zeal of planting the Christian religion in those barbarous countries, and for the advancement and preferment of the same, and the common utility and profit of the inhabitants ". White was a member of the company. He seems to have done his duty toward the colonists to the utmost of his power, as they had expected from him. Finding that three ships, fitted out for the West Indies at the especial charge of a London merchant, were de- tained at Plymouth by a general embargo, when they were ready to sail he obtained, through Raleigh's influence, a licence for them to proceed on their voyage ; in consideration where- of the owner engaged that they should transport a convenient number of passengers, with their furniture and necessaries, and land them in Virginia. In contempt of this engagement, White, who had hoped now to go out with such supplies as his poor countrymen had two years been looking for, was only allowed a passage for himself and his chest. There was no time for him to go to Raleigh with his complaint ; "for the ships," he says, " being all in readiness, would have departed before I could have made my return : then both governors, masters, and sailors regarded very smally the goods of their countrymen in Virginia, determined nothing less than to touch at those places, but wholly disposed themselves to seek after purchase and spoil, spending so much time therein that summer was spent before we arrived in Virginia". They anchored at Hatorask in the middle of August ; and seeing a great smoke in the isle of Roanoak, near the place where the colony had been left, White, who had a married daughter among the colonists, was in good hope that some of them were there, looking for his return. The two boats went ashore, leaving orders for the gunners to make ready 260 ENGLISH SEAMEN three guns, "well loaded, and to shoot them off with reason- able space between each shot, to the end that their reports might be heard at the place where they hoped to find some of their people ". They were " sore tired before they came to the smoke ; and, what grieved them more, when they came there they found neither man nor sign that any had been there lately ". On the morrow a second search was made ; but one of the boats was swamped, and the captain, with four others of the chiefest men, perished, — a mischance " which did so much discomfort the sailors, that they were all of one mind not to go any farther to seek the planters " ; but they yielded to White's persuasion and the authority of the sur- viving captain, and making for the place where the colonists were left, they overshot it in the dark. Espying then the light of a great fire through the woods, they rowed towards it; "and when we came right over against it," says White, "we let fall our grapnel near the shore, and sounded with a trumpet a call, and after many familiar English tunes of songs, and called to them friendly ; but we had no answer. We therefore landed at daybreak, and coming to the fire we found the grass and sundry rotten trees burning about the place." Going from thence to the place where the colony had been left three years before, "all the way we saw in the sand the print of the savages' feet trodden that night ; and as we entered up the sandy bank, upon a tree on the very brow thereof, were curiously carved these fair Roman letters, CRO, which letters presently we knew to signify the place where I should find the planters seated, according to a token agreed upon at my departure ; which was, that they should not fail to write or carve on the trees, or posts of the doors, the name of the place where they should be seated, for at my coming away they were prepared to remove from Roanoak fifty miles into the main. Therefore, at my departure, I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places, then they should carve over the letters or name a cross ; but we found no such sign of distress. And having well considered of this, we passed toward the place where they were left ; but we found the houses taken down, and the place strongly enclosed with a high palisade of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very fort-like ; and one of the chief trees or posts, at the right side of the entrance, had the bark taken off], and five feet from the ground, in fair SIR WALTER RALEIGH 26l capital letters, was written CROATOAN, without any cross or sign of distress. In the palisade we found many bars of iron, two pigs of lead, four iron fowlers, iron saker shot, and such like heavy things, thrown here and there, almost over- grown with grass and weeds. We went to see if we could find any of their boats ; but could perceive no sign of them, nor of the falcons and small ordnance which were left with them. At our return from the creek, some of our sailors, meeting us, told us they had found where divers chests had been hidden, and long since digged up again and broken up, and much of the goods in them spoiled and scattered about ; but nothing left, of such things as the savages knew any use of, undefeced. Presently Captain Cooke and I went to the place, which was in the end of an old trench made by Captain Amadas, where we found five chests that had been carefully hidden of the planters, and of the same chests three were my own ; and about the place many of my things spoiled and broken, and my books torn from the covers, the frames of some of my pictures and maps rotten and spoiled with rain, and my armour almost eaten through with rust. This could be no other but the deed of the savages our enemies at Dasamonguepeuk, who had watched the departure of our men to Croatoan, and digged up every place where they sus- pected anything to be buried. But although it much grieved me to see such spoil of my goods, yet, on the other side, I greatly joyed that I had found a certain token of their safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was bom, and the savages of the island our friends." * It was now agreed that they should make for Croatoan ; but one mishap followed another ; and though they left the coast with the intention of wintering in the West Indies, and visit- ing their countrymen in Virginia on their return, foul weather compelled them to frame their course first for the Azores, and thence for England. No further attempt was made to relieve the colonists, nor to ascertain their fate. The names of ninety- one men, seventeen women, and nine children, " which safely arrived at Virginia, and remained to inhabit there," and of two infants who were born there, are preserved in Hakluyt ; and of these persons nothing was ever afterwards known.f No farther attempt was made to succour them, nor even to * Hakluyt, 293. i Ibid., 2SS. 262 ENGLISH SEAMEN ascertain their fate. Hakluyt was one of the company to which Raleigh assigned his patent ; and to Hakluyt, address- ing the journal of his last voyage, his "most well-wishing" and " more deeply engaged friend/' White says these " evils and unfortunate events had not .chanced if the order set down by Sir Walter Raleigh had been observe37 or if my daily and continual petitions for the performance of the same might have taken any place. Yet, seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remain contented ; and, wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were answerable to my will. Thus committing the relief of my discomfortable company, the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseech to help and comfort them according to His most holy will and their desire, I take my leave." ^ More exertions might, pe^aps, have been made to relieve these unfortunate planters, it the intervening years had not been the busiest of Raleigh's adventurous life. He had borne a part in the defeat of the Armada, and was probably on^ of those persons whose advice was followed by the lord high admiral. In the triumphant procession to return thanks at St. Paul's for that great deliverance, he was conspicuous as commander of the queen's guard. He obtained a considerable augmentation of his wine-patent. He was one of the 1100 gentlemen who adventured in the Portugal expedition with the Prior Don Antonio ; and he had the good fortune to be one of the 350 who returned from it. None of the errors which were committed in that expedition were imputable to him ; and his conduct in it having been such as might be expected from a man of his known abilities, he was honoured by the queen with a golden chain. The favour, however, which he had hitherto enjoyed was soon withdrawn. Essex, who regarded him as a rival, succeeded in eloigning him from the court, and he was sent to Ireland, which was regarded as an honourable banishment.* There he became acquainted with Spenser, whom he encouraged to proceed with the Faery * In a letter of court news to Anthony Bacon (17th August, 1589), the writer says that Essex had " chased Mr. Raleigh from the court, and confined him unto Ireland. Conjecture you the rest of that matter " (Birch, 156). No light has been thrown upon this intrigue ; but we know from Spenser that the ** shepherd of the ocean " felt himself unkindly and unjustly used. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 265 These opinions he enforced in Parliament, agreeing with those who wished to have the quarrel with Spain maintained on national grounds. " He knew," he said, " many who held it not lawful in conscience to take from the Spaniards while the two nations were on their present footing ; and he knew also that if it were lawful and open war, there would be more voluntary hands than the queen would stand in need of to send to sea." * Large supplies were required, and Raleigh spoke in support of the motion, not only (as he protested) to please the queen, to whom he was infinitely bound above his deserts, but for the necessity which he both saw and knew. " The King of Spain," he said, " had beleaguered us on every side. In Denmark, the king being young, he had corrupted the council and nobility, so that he was like to speed himself with shipping from thence. Great store, too, he had laid in in the marine towns of the Low Countries and of Norway. In France he had the Parliament towns at his command ; in Brittany, all the best havens ; and in Scotland he had so corrupted the nobles, that he had promised them forces to re- establish papistry : there they were ready to join with any foreign forces that would make them strong to be by them- selves and to resist others ; for, as he thought, there were not six gentlemen in that country of one religion. In his own kingdom there is all possible repairing, and he is coming with sixty galleys, besides other shipping, with purpose to annoy us. We must then have no ships riding at anchor ; all will be little enough to withstand him ! At his coming he fully determineth to get Plymouth, or at least to possess some of the havens this summer within our land ; and Plymouth is a place of most danger, for no ordnance can be carried thither to remove him : the passages will not give leave. Now the way to defeat him is this : to send a royal army to supplant him in Brittany, and^to possess ourselves there ; and to send a strong navy to sea, and to lie with it upon the Cape and such places as his ships bring his riches to, that they may set upon all that comes. This we are able to do, and undoubtedly with fortunate success if we undertake." f The two houses differed upon the amount of the supplies ; the lords proposing more than the commons had granted. A conference was proposed and negatived, but in the next day's • Pari. History, i., 880. f Ibid., 883. 266 ENGLISH SEAMEN debate Raleigh brought the house to a better mind by alleging that the question had been mistaken ; and that though he could not make it a question again, yet it might be propounded in some such words as these, " Whether the house would be pleased to have a general conference with the lords, touching the great and imminent danger of the nation, and the present necessary supply of treasure to be provided speedily for the same, according to the proportion of the necessity". This was agreed to without one dissentient voice ; * and in the end the larger sum was granted. In her speech on dissolving the Parliament, the queen said, ''This subsidy you give me I accept thankfully, if you give me your good-will with it ; but if the necessity of the time and your preservation did not require it. If would refuse it. But, let me tell you, the sum is not so much but that it is needful for a princess to have so much always lying in her coffers for your defence in time of need, and not be driven to get it when she should use it." \ On this occasion Raleigh had done the Government good service ; yet at this time, he " who had tasted," it is said, "abundantly of the queens love," found it beginning to decline, and therefore resolved to undertake a naval expedi- tion,! — a course which assorted equally with his views of national policy and private interest. He was still in sufficient favour to obtain her commission, and he " slacked not his utter- most diligence to make full provision of all things necessary," both in his choice of good ships and sufficient men. Of fifteen ships, the queen supplied " the two chiefest " ; the rest were either his own, or his good friends', or adventurers of London. " For the gentlemen, his consorts and officers, to give them their right," says Hakluyt,§ " they were so well qualified in courage, experience, and discretion, as the greatest prince might repute himself happy to be served with their like." Sir John Burrough was appointed lieutenant-general, Raleigh having the command ; " the rest of the captains, soldiers, and sailors were men of notable resolution, and for the most part such as had given to the world sufficient proof of their valour in divers services of the like nature ". With this force he sailed in February to his own country, there " to store himself with such further necessaries as the state of his * Pari. History, 887. t Ibid., 893. X Monson. § Hakluyt, ii., 194. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 267 voyage did needfully require, where, the westerly winds blow- ing for a long time contrary to his course, bound and constrained him to keep harbour so many weeks that the fittest season for his purpose was gone, the minds of his people much altered, his victuals consumed, and withal Her Majesty, understanding how crossly all this sorted, began to call the proceeding of this preparation into question". The arrangements indeed appear by a letter of Raleigh to Cecil to have been either ill settled or ill understood. "Sir," he says to the secretary, "I received your letter this present day at Chatham concerning the wages of the mariners and others. For mine own part I am very willing to enter bond as you persuaded me, so as the privy seal be first sent for my enjoying the third ; but I pray consider that I have laid all that I am worth, and must do ere I depart on this voyage. If it fall not out well, I can but lose all ; and if nothing be remaining, wherewith should I pay the wages .'* Besides, Her Majesty told me herself that she was contented to pay her part, and my lord admiral his, and I should but discharge for mine own ships. And, farther, I have promised Her Majesty that if I can persuade the companies to follow Sir Martin Frobisher, I will without fail return and bring them out into the sea but some fifty or threescore leagues, for which purpose my lord admiral hath lent me the Disdain : which to do Her Majesty many times, with great grace, bid me re- member, and sent me the same message by Willian Killigrew, which, God willing, if I can persuade the companies, I mean to perform, though I dare not be acknown thereof to any creature. But, sir, for me thus to be bound for so great a sum upon the hope of another man's fortune, I will be loath ; and beside, if I am able, I see no privy seal for my thirds. I mean not to run away, as they say I will, for fear of a marriage, and I know not what. If any such thing were, I would have imparted it unto yourself before any man living ; and there- fore, I pray, believe it not, and I beseech you to suppress what you can any such malicious report. For I protest before God, there is none upon the face of the earth that I would be fastened unto. And so, in haste, I take my leave of your honour, from Chatham, the 10th of March. " Yours ever to be commanded, "W. Raleigh." 268 ENGLISH SEAMEN Raleigh was endowed with many great qualities, and some good ones ; but this letter contains proof of that want of rectitude which was his bane. That fault was manifested in things of more importance to himself than even the present expedition ; but in regard to this expedition also, it appears that there was an understanding between him and the queen that he was not to go in command of it, though the ad- venturers had been led to engage in it under such a belief. The motives for this are not explained in any documents which have been brought to light ; but from the statement in Hakluyt, it seems that he was not acting with good faith toward the queen. For having put to sea on the 6th of May, "the very next day," says the old writer, "Sir Martin Frobisher, in a pinnace of my lord admiral's, called the Disdain, met him, and brought to him from Her Majesty letters of revocation, with commandment to relinquish for his own part the intended attempt, and to leave the charge and conduct of all things in the hands of Sir John Burrough and Sir Martin Frobisher. But Sir Walter finding his honour so far engaged in the undertaking of this voyage, as without proceeding he saw no remedy to salve his reputation, or to content those his friends which had put in adventures of great sums with him; and making construction of the queen's letters in such sort as if her commandment had been pro- pounded in indifferent terms, either to advance forward, or to retire at his own discretion, would in no case yield to him his fleet now under sail." * He therefore continued his course ; and though in a day or two he fell in with what was deemed certain information "that there was little hopes of any good this year to be done in the West Indies, considering that the King of Spain had sent express orders to all the ports both of the islands and of Terra Firma that no ship should stir that year, nor any treasure be laid aboard for Spain," neither that unpleasant relation nor aught else could stay his pro- ceedings, till a tempest, when they were athwart Cape Finis- terre, scattered the fleet, and sunk his boats and pinnaces, and he himself, "was in danger to be swallowed up of the sea". Then indeed he obeyed the queen's orders, and returned, leaving directions for Burrough and Frobisher to divide the fleet into two squadrons : Burrough, with one, to cruise off * Hakluyt, ii., 195. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 269 the coast of Spain ; and Frobisher, with the other, to make for the Azores, and there wait for the Indian ships. By the latter it was, in conjunction with a small squadron of the Earl of Cumberland's, that the Madre de Dios was taken, a richer prize than had ever before been brought to England. * Raleigh's expectations of profit from this capture were very great : lie and Hawkins, who was his principal partner in the enterprise, estimated the value at not less than half a million ; but owing more to dishonesty than miscalculation, it fell short of that amount by more than two-thirds. Elizabeth, too, made use of her authority, and took the lioness's share.f Raleigh had incurred her displeasure at this time ; the malicious reports which he had told Cecil not to believe, and besought him to suppress, were true to the full extent. He had wooed and won Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. She was one of the maids of honour. The queen's consent to the marriage was necessary; this it was deemed dangerous to ask ; and when the consequences of their mutual affection could no longer be concealed, he was committed to the Tower, for what was not only a moral sin, but in those days a heinous political offence. It would be easier to extenuate the fault, than to excuse Raleigh for the part which he acted in confinement. " I cannot," says Mr. (afterwards Sir) Arthur Gorges, in a letter to Cecil, "choose but advertise you of a strange tragedy that had like to have fallen out between the captain of the guard and the lieutenant of the ordnance, if I had not by great chance come at the very instant to have turned it into a comedy. For upon the report of Her Majesty being at Sir George Carew's, Sir Walter Raleigh having gazed and sighed a long time at his study window, from whence he might discern the barges and boats about the Blackfriar's stairs, suddenly he brake out into a great distemper, and sware that his enemies had on purpose brought Her Majesty thither, to break his gall in sunder with Tantalus's torment, that when she went away he might see his death before his eyes ; with many such-Uke conceits. And * See vol. iii., pp. 19-24. t Her adventure in this voyage " was only two ships, one of which, and the least of them too, was at the taking of the carrack ". This title, how- ever, "joined with her regal authority, she made such use of, that the rest of the adventurers were fain to submit themselves to her pleasure, with whom," Monson adds (165), "she dealt but indifferently," 270 ENGLISH SEAMEN as a man transported with passion, he sware to Sir George Carew, that he would disguise himself, and get into a pair of oars to ease his mind but with a sight of the queen, or else he protested his heart would break. But the trusty jailor would none of that, for displeasing the higher powers, as he said, which he more respected than the feeding of his humours ; and so flatly refused to permit him. But in conclusion upon this dispute, they fell flat out to choleric, outrageous words, with straining and struggling at the doors, that all lameness was forgotten; and in the fury of the conflict, the jailor had his new periwig torn off his crown ; and yet here the battle ended not, for at last they had gotten out their daggers, which, when I saw, I played the stickler between them, and so purchased such a rap on the knuckles, that I wished both their pates broken ; and so, with much ado, they stayed their brawl to see my bloody fingers. At the first I was ready to break with laughter to see them two scramble and brawl like madmen, until I saw the iron walking, and then I did my best to appease the fury. As yet I cannot reconcile them by any persuasions, for Sir Walter swears that he shall hate him for so restraining him from the sight of his mistress while he lives, for that he knows not (as he said) whether ever he shall see her again when she is gone the progress. And Sir George, on his side, swears that he had rather he should lose his longing than that he would draw on him Her Majesty's displeasure by such liberty. Thus they continue in malice and snarling, but I am sure all the smart lighted on me. I cannot tell whether I should more allow of the passionate lover or the trusty jailor. But if yourself had seen it as I did, you would have been as heartily merry and sorry as ever you were in all your life for so short a time. I pray you pardon my hasty written narration which I acquaint you with, hoping you will be the peacemaker. But, good sir, let nobody know thereof, for I fear Sir Walter Raleigh will shortly grow to be Orlando Furioso, if the bright Angelica persevere against him a little longer. If you let the queen's majesty know hereof, as you think good be it. But other- wise, good sir, keep it secret, for their credits ; for they know not of my discourse, which I could wish Her Majesty knew." This piece of acting might seem hardly to be believed, if Raleigh had not kept up, in a letter to Cecil, the character which he then played. The letter began with a sentence of SIR WALTER RALEIGH 271 business relating to his office as captain of the queen's guard. It then passed at once into a strain of that fantastic flattery, which it was not more weak in Ehzabeth to receive, than it was base in a man of Raleigh's understanding to offer. " My heart," said he, "was never broken till this day, that I hear the queen goes away so far off, whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire in so many journeys ; and am now left behind her, in a dark prison, all alone. While she was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less ; but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery, — I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph ; sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus ! Behold the sorrow of this world ! One amiss hath bereaved me of all. O glory that only shineth in misfortune, what is become of thy assurance ? All wounds have scars but that of fantasy, all afflictions their relenting but that of womankind's. Who is to judge of friendship but adversity ? Or when is grace witnessed but in offences ? There were no divinity but by reason of com- passion, for revenges are brutish and mortal. All those times past, — the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, can they not weigh down one frail misfortune ? Cannot one drop of gall be hidden in so great heaps of sweetness ? I may then conclude Spes et Fortuna valete ! She is gone on whom I trusted, and of me hath not one thought of mercy, nor any respect of that that was. Do with me now therefore what you list ! I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish ; which if it had been for her, as it is by her, I had been too happily bom. " Yours, not worthy any name or title, "W. R." Raleigh's imprisonment continued for about eight weeks. On his release he showed himself two days in London ; then went westward, to look after his partition of the great prize.* Considering the large demands of the queen upon it, and the amount which had been embezzled, he was thought to have * Birch, i., 88. 272 ENGLISH SEAMEN obtained a good share. When congratulated on his deliver- ance, he said that he was still the Queen of England's poor captive. At this time, however, it must have been that his marriage took place : a happy one it would have been, if he had not been too much accustomed to adventurous courses and to court intrigues ever to be contented with the quiet pursuits of private life. He had now no reason to complain of fortune, if the goods which he possessed had been well gotten ; but with that consideration he was little troubled : he was not one of those persons who felt any scruples at making spoil of the Spaniards, even when there was a semblance of peace between the two nations ; and under the queen's favour and the forms of perverted law, he was not scrupulous in appropriating to himself some of the spoils of the church. By her favour, when Dr. Caldwell was made Bishop of Salisbury,* he obtained a grant of the manor of Sherboume, including the castle and park, being the spolia opima -f of that see. His * Well-merited reproach was brought both upon the bishop and Raleigh by this transaction. The bishop, however, appears to have acted under compulsion, and to have repented bitterly of his weakness. The see had suffered grievously under a former prelate, in 1539. "What time," says Sir John Karrington, " Dr. Capon was translated from Bangor thither : a man for learning and wit worthy to be of Apollo's crew ; but for his spoil and havoc he is said to have made of this church land, more worthy to be of Apollyon's crew ; for he is noted to be one of the first that made a capon of his bishopric, and so gelded it that it will never be able to build either church or castle again. How Dr. Caldwell of a physician became a bishop, I have heard by more than a good many, as they say. I touched before how this church had surfeited of a capon, which lying heavy in her stomach, it may be thought she had need of a physician. But this man proved no good church physician. Had she been sick of a pleurisy, too much abounding with blood, as in ages past, then such bleeding physic, perhaps, might have done it no harm. Now, inclining rather to a con- sumption, to let it bleed afresh at so large a vein, was almost enough to draw out the very life blood " {Brief View of the State of the Church of England). t " To speak of the knight that carried the spolia opima of this bishopric, having gotten Sherborne castle, park, and parsonage, he was, in those days, in so great favour with the queen, as I may boldly say, that with less suit than he was fain to make to her ere he could perfect this his purchase, and with less money than he bestowed in Sherborne, in building and buying out leases, and in drawing the river through rocks into his garden, he might very justly, and without offence of church or state, have com- passed a much better purchase. " Also, if I have been truly informed, he had a presage before he first attempted it, that did foreshow it would turn to his ruin, and might have kept him from meddling with it, ' si mens non Iceva fuisset '. For as he SIR WALTER RALEIGH 27S first intention was to repair the castle ; but giving up that purpose he built in the adjoining ground, " a most fine house, which he beautified with orchards, gardens, and groves of much variety and great delight " ; so that, says the author * of a Survey of Dorsetshire, "whether that you consider the pleasantness of the seat, the goodness of the soil, or the delicacies belonging unto it, it was unparalleled by any in these parts ". Though Raleigh appeared to interest himself in horticultural and other improvements at Sherboume, which he called his fortune's fold, his mind was busied with affairs of State, and projects of advancement and adventure. He had some stake in Ireland ; and his measures, which were directed not more for his own advantage, than for the good of that most miser- able country, were counteracted by the rulers there. Writing to Cecil at this time, he says, " I had been able myself to have raised two or three bands of English, well armed, till I was driven to relinquish, and recall my people, of which the loss shall not be alone to me, howsoever I am tumbled down the hill by every practice. We are so busied and daudled in these French wars, which are endless, as we forget the defence next the heart. Her Majesty hath good cause to remember that a million hath been spent in Ireland, not many years was riding post between Plymouth and the court, as many times he did upon no small employments, this castle being right in the way, he cast such an eye upon it as Ahab did upon Naboth's vineyard; and once, above the rest, being talking of it, of the commodiousness of the place, of the strength of the seat, and how easily it might be got from the bishopric, suddenly over and over came his horse, that his very face, which was then thought a good face, ploughed up the earth where he fell. This fall was ominous, I make no question, as the like was observed in the Lord Hastings, and before him in others ; but his brother Adrian (Gilbert) would needs have him interpret it, not as a courtier, but as a conqueror, that it presaged the quiet possession of it. And accordingly, for the present, that fell out: he got it with much labour, and travail, and cost, and envy, and obloquy to him and his heirs, habendum et tenendum : but ere it came fully to gaudendum, see what became of him I " Now I return to the bishop, that was the second party delinquent in this petty larceny, or, rather, plain sacrilege. What was his purpose? To make himself rich by making his see poor. Attained he his purpose herein ? Nothing left ; no bishop of Sarum since the conquest died so notoriously in debt ; his friends glad to bury him, sine lux, sine crux, sine clenco, as the old byword is" {Brief View of the State of the Church of England). * Coker, quoted in Cayley's Life of Raleigh. 18 274 ENGLISH SEAMEN since : a better kingdom might have been purchased at a less price, and that cause defended with as many pence, if good order had been taken. But the question now may be, whether for so great expenses the estate be not less assured than ever. If Her Majesty consider it aright, she shall find it no small dishonour to be vexed with so beggarly a nation, that has neither arms nor fortifications ; but that accursed kingdom hath always been but as a traffic, for which Her Majesty hath paid both freight and custom, and others received the mer- chandise ; and other than such shall it never be. The King of Spain seeketh not Ireland for Ireland ; but having raised up troops of beggars on our back, shall be able to enforce us to cast our eyes over our shoulders, while those before us strike us on the brains. We have also known the level of his subversion ; but destiny is stronger than counsel, and good advice either neglected or weakly executed hath taught our enemies to cover those parts which before lay bare to the sword." His enemies were at this time afraid, not only of his return to favour, but of his being called to the queen's counsels. "Of choice of counsellors," says one of them in a letter, "there is a bruit, but nothing assured. Sir Walter Raleigh looketh for a place amongst them ; and it is now feared of all honest men that he shall presently come to the court, and is thereto wrought to serve a turn. And yet it is well with- stood. God grant him some further resistance, and that place he better deserveth, if he had his right ! " * Raleigh indeed had as many enemies as rivals, and by despising those who feared and envied him he drew upon himself their hatred. Elizabeth's favour was sometimes misbestowed, but she never misplaced her good opinion, and she had a high one of Sir Walter's abilities. "She took him," says Naunton, "for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all ; yea, those that he relied on began to be sensible of their own supplantation and to project his. So that finding his favour declining and falling into a recess, he undertook a new peregrination to leave that terra infirma of the court for that of the waves ; and by de- clining himself and by absence to expel his and the passion of his enemies : which in court was a strange device of re- covery, but that he then knew there was some ill office done * Birch, 151. SIR WA;LTER RALEIGH 275 him. Yet he durst not attempt to mend it otherwise than by going aside, tliereby to teach envy a new way of forgetful- ness. However, he had it always in mind never to forget himself." * Sir Walter's views were fixed upon no less an object than the discovery and conquest of Eldorado. How the fictions concerning that imaginary empire originated is easily ex- plained. Along the whole coast of the Spanish main there were rumours of an inland country which abounded with gold ; beyond all doubt these related to the kingdoms of Bogota and Tunja, which equalled Peru in this respect, and were little if at all inferior to it in their grade of civilisa- tion. Rumours of the same kind, and bearing upon the same direction, prevailed in Peru ; and in those countries which afterwards constituted the Nuevo Reyno de Grenada three adventurers who were in quest of the golden kingdom met, — Belalcazar, coming from Quito ; Federman, from Venezuela ; and Quesada, who came first, and effected the conquest, by the river Madalena. But reports of the same kind were found there relating to Peru ; and thus adventurers were allured from time to time to enter upon the pursuit long after the spoil had been taken. "[- Upon this foundation an extravagant fiction had been framed, that a nephew or brother of the last reigning inca, Atabalipa, escaping from the wreck of the Peruvian Empire with the greater part of its remaining force and of its treasures, had established himself with equal or greater splendour in a country not less abounding with mines than that from which he had migrated. The Spaniards lost more men in seeking for this imaginary kingdom than in the conquest of Mexico and Peru. Raleigh seems not to have doubted what was so fully believed by the Spaniards ; but if he had examined into the statements which he advanced to prove the existence of Eldorado, and the possibility of con- quering it, he might have found himself contradicted by dates, and could not but have perceived the inconsistencies and absurdities of a tale which had allured so many ad- venturers to destruction. Meaning to enter by the Orinoco, he sent a ship, under Captain Whiddon, to reconnoitre that part of the coast, and obtain information at the island of Trinidad. Meantime he * Fragmenta Regalia. t History of Brazil^ i., 393 276 ENGLISH SEAMEN prepared for an expedition thither, with what force is not stated, but it appears that Cecil and the lord high admiral, Howard, were induced to take part in the adventure.* But an ill opinion was entertained by some persons both of him and the enterprise. "They," said he, "have grossly belied me that forejudged that I would rather become a servant to the Spanish king than return ; and the rest were much mis- taken who would have persuaded that I was too easeful and sensual to undertake a journey of so great travail. -j- It is true that as my errors were great, so they have yielded very grievous effects ; and if aught might have been deserved in former times to have counterpoised any part of offences, the fruit thereof (as it seemeth) was long before fallen from the tree, and the dead stock only remained. I did, therefore, even in the winter of my life, undertake these travels, fitter for bodies less blasted with misfortunes, for men of greater ability, and for minds of better encouragement ; that thereby, if it were possible, I might recover but the moderation of excess, and the least taste of the greatest plenty formerly possessed." J He sailed from Plymouth on 6th February, 1595 ; and after waiting about a week at Teneriffe in vain for some of his ships, proceeded with only his own vessel and a small boat to Trinidad. There he found part of his squadron at a place which the natives, he says, called Conquerabia, and the Spaniards Puerto de los Espanoles : and there he found a company of * This appears in the " Epistle Dedicatory " of his narrative to them : — " For your honours' many honourable and friendly parts I have hitherto only returned promises ; and now for answer of both your adventure I have sent you a bundle of papers, which I have divided between your lordship and Sir Robert Cecil, in these two respects chiefly : first, for that it is reason that watchful factors, when they have consumed such stocks as they have in trust, do yield some colour for the same in their accounts ; secondly, for that I am afraid that whatsoever shall be done or written by me shall need a double protection and defence" (Hakluyt, iii., 627). t Hakluyt, iii., 628. It was said to him that his talk of going to sea was a bravado, and that he was hidden in Cornwall, or elsewhere (Hakluyt, ibid.). Fuller tells us he •• had many enemies (which were never wanted) at court, his cowardly detractors, of whom Sir Walter used to say, ' If any man accuseth me to my face, I will answer him with my mouth ; but my tail is good enough to return an answer to such who traduceth me behind my back '. He cared for such enemies just as much as Oliver Cromwell did for Magna Charta," t Hakluyt, 627. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 277 Spaniards keeping guard at the landing-place. They seemed, however, " desirous to trade and to enter into terms of peace, more for doubt of their own strength than for aught else ". From some of them who came aboard to buy linen, and such other things as they wanted, and whom he entertained kindly and with good cheer, he learned as much concerning Guiana as they knew, or had been deluded to believe. " For these poor soldiers," says he, "having been many years without wine, a few draughts made them merry ; in which mood they vaunted of Guiana, and of the riches thereof, and all what they knew of the bays and passages, myself seeming to purpose nothing less than the entrance or discovery thereof, but bred in them an opinion that I was bound only for the relief of those English whom I had planted in Virginia, whereof the bruit was come among them, which I had performed in my return if extremity of weather had not forced me from the said coast." The abandonment of those poor colonists must ever be a reproach to Raleigh.* Raleigh had two motives for tarrying awhile at this place : the one was to obtain more information concerning Guiana, the late attempts of the Spaniards in that discovery, and the causes of their failure ; the other was to be revenged of the governor, who the year before had treacherously entrapped eight of Captain Whiddon's men. This governor, Antonio de Berrio, having married a niece of Quesada's, the conqueror of the Nuevo Reyno de Grenada, had by that conqueror's will, conformably to a royal grant, become governor of the province of Guiana, though the title was disputed by the royal audience of St. Domingo. Trinidad, as well as the mouths of the Orinoco, were included in this province ; and Berrio had founded one city, named St. Joseph de Oruno, in the island, and another some forty leagues up the great river, which he named St. Thomas.f At this time he is said by Raleigh to have been in the island, and to have sent to Margarita and Cumana for soldiers ; " meaning," says Sir Walter, " to have given me a cassado at parting, if it had been possible. For although he had given order through all the island that no Indian should come aboard to trade with me upon pain of hanging and quartering, (having executed two of them for the same, which I afterwards found), yet every night there came * Hakluyt, 632. f Pedro Simon, vii., c. 10, § i. 278 ENGLISH SEAMEN some with most lamentable complaints of his cruelty, — how he had divided the island and given to every soldier a part ; that he made the ancient caciques, which were lords of the country, to be their slaves ; that he kept them in chains, and dropped their naked bodies with burning bacon, and such other torments, which I found afterwards to be true.* So as both to be revenged of the former wrong, as also considering that to enter Guiana by small boats, to depart 400 or 500 miles from my ships, and to leave a garrison in my back in- terested in the same enterprise, who also daily expected supplies out of Spain, I should have savoured very much of the ass ; and, therefore, taking a time of most advantage, I set upon the corps du garde in the evening ; and having put them to the sword, sent Captain Calfield onward with sixty soldiers, and myself followed with forty more, and so took their new city, which they called St. Joseph, by break of day. They abode not any fight after a few shot ; and all being dismissed but only Berrio and his companions, I brought them with me aboard, and, at the instance of the Indians, I set their new city on fire." -I" That same day two more of his ships arrived, and " in them divers gentlemen and others, which to our little army," he says, "was a great comfort and supply. We then hasted away towards our purposed discovery. And first I called all the captains of the island together that were enemies to the Spaniards ; for there were some which Berrio had brought out of other countries and planted there to eat out and waste those that were natural of the place ; and by my Indian in- terpreter, which I carried out of England, I made them under- stand that I was the servant of a queen who was the great cacique of the north, and a virgin, and had more caciqui under her than there were trees in that island ; that she was an enemy to the Castellani in respect of their tyranny and op- pression, and that she delivered all such nations about her as * *• For in this city, after I entered the same, there were five of these lords or little kings, which they call caciques in the West Indies, in one chain, almost dead of famine, and wasted with torments. These are called, in their own language, acarawana ; and now of late, since English, French, and Spanish are come among them, they call themselves capitaines, because they perceive that the chiefest of every ship is called by that name " (Hakluyt, 632, 633). t Hakluyt, 633. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 279 were by them oppressed ; and having freed all the coast of the northern world from their servitude, had sent me to free them also, and withal to defend the country of Guiana from their invasion and conquest. I showed them Her Majesty's picture, which they so admired and honoured as it had been easy to have brought them idolatrous thereof." * Finding the governor to be very valiant and liberal, and a gentleman of great assuredness and of a great heart, Raleigh " used him according to his estate in all things, as far as his own small means extended ". '* He gathered from him," he says, " as much of Guiana as he knew." Berrio seems, indeed (if it were he), to have conversed willingly upon his own adventures in exploring the countries from the Nuevo Reyno, having no suspicion of Raleigh's views. But when Sir Walter, having " learned his proceedings past and purposed," told him that he had resolved to see Guiana, and that this was the object of his voyage, and the cause of his coming to Trinidad, the governor "was stricken," says he, "into a great melancholy and sadness, and used all the arguments he could to dissuade me ; and also assured the gentlemen of my company that it would be labour lost, and that they should suffer many miseries if they proceeded. And first he delivered that I could not enter any of the rivers with any barque or pinnace, or hardly with any ship's boat, it was so low, sandy, and full of flats ; and that his companies were daily grounded in their canoes, which drew but twelve inches of water. He further said that none of the country would come to speak with us, but would all fly ; and if we followed them to their dwellings, they would burn their own towns ; and besides that, the way was long, the winter at hand, and that the rivers beginning once to swell, it was impossible to stem the current ; and that we could not in those small boats by any means carry victual for half the time ; and (that which, indeed, most discouraged my company), that the kings and lords of all the borders of Guiana had decreed that none of them should trade with any Christians for gold, because the same would be their own overthrow, and that for the love of gold the Christians meant to conquer and dispossess them altogether." ■]• The most discouraging part of his information Raleigh kept from the knowledge of his company ; this was, that the * Hakluy t, 633. f Ibid., 642. 280 ENGLISH SEAMEN golden country of which they were in search was above 600 miles farther from the coast than Captain Whiddon's intelli- gence had led him to believe when he sailed from England. If they had known this, they would never have been brought to attempt the discovery."^ Being, however, resolved himself " to make trial of all, whatsoever happened," he directed his vice-admiral. Captain George Gifford, with the Lions Whelp, and Captain Calfield with his barque, to turn to the eastward, to the mouth of a river called Capuri. Whiddon and his master, John Douglas, had been previously sent to explore the entrance, and had found some nine feet water at the flood, and five at low water. Their instructions were to anchor at the edge of a shoal which Douglas " had buoyed and beaconed for them," and upon the best of the flood to thrust over. "But they laboured in vain ; for neither could they turn it up altogether so far to the east, neither did the flood continue so long but that the water fell ere they could have passed the sands." Raleigh saw that he must either give over the enterprise, or, leaving his ships at adventure 400 miles behind him, run up in the ships' boats, one barge, and two wherries. " But being doubtful," he says, " how to carry victuals for so long a time in such babies, or any strength of men (especially for that Berrio assured us that his son must be by that time come down with many soldiers), I sent away one King, master of the Lion's Whelp, with his ship's boat, to try another branch of a river in the bottom of the bay of Guanipa, which was called Amana, to prove if there were water to be found for either of the small ships to enter. But when he came to the mouth of Amana he found it as the rest, but stayed not to discover it thoroughly, because he was assured by an Indian, his guide, that the cannibals of Guanipa would assail them with many canoes, and that they shot poisoned arrows ; so as if he hastened not back they should all be lost." -|- Meantime Raleigh instructed his carpenters to cut down a Galego boat which he had meant to cast off, fit it with banks to row on, and prepare it in all things the best they could, so that it might draw but five feet, for so much there was on the bar of Capuri at low water. And, doubting King's return, he sent Douglas again in his long barge to relieve him, and also to make a perfect search in the bottom of that bay : " for it * Hakluyt, 633. f Ibid., 642. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 281 hath been held for infallible/' says he, " that whatsoever ship or boat shall fall therein shall never disembogue again, by reason of the violent current which setteth into the said bay, as also for that the breeze and easterly wind bloweth directly into the same ". An old cacique of Trinidad, who went with Douglas for a pilot, told them they could not return again by the bay, but that he knew a by-branch, which ran within the land to the eastward, and by which he thought they might fall into the Capuri, and so return in four days. Douglas " found four goodly entrances, whereof the least was as big as the Thames at Woolwich ; but in the bay thitherward it was shoal, and but six feet water ". Being thus without hope of passing in any larger vessel, Raleigh resolved to go with the boats. Accord- ingly, he "thrust" sixty men with him in the galego, the officers and gentlemen of this party being his cousin, John Greenville; his nephew, John Gilbert; Captains Thin, Whiddon, Key mis, Clarke, and Facy ; Lieutenant Hewes, Edward Hand- cock, Thomas Upton, Jerome Ferrar, Anthony Wells, and William Connocke. In the Lion's Whelp's boat and wherry. Captain Gifford carried twenty, including Master Edward Porter and Captain Eynos. Captain Calfield had in his wherry Raleigh's cousin, Butshed Gorges, and eight men ; and in Raleigh's barge there were ten, making 100 in all. "We had no other means," he says, "but to carry victual for a month in the same, and also to lodge therein as we could, and to boil and dress our meat."* They had as much sea to cross as between Dover and Calais, "and in a great billow, the wind and current being both very strong " ; so that they were driven to go in those small boats directly before the wind, into the bottom of the bay, thinking to enter one of the rivers which Douglas had discovered. For pilot they had with them an Aruacan Indian, called Ferdinando ; his native place was on a river between the Orinoco and the Orellana, or Amazons, and they had formerly taken him and his brother as he was going from thence with some canoes loaded with cassava bread to sell at Margarita. "This Aruacan," says Raleigh, "promised to bring me into the great river Orinoco ; but, indeed, of that which he entered he was utterly ignorant, for he had not seen it in twelve years before, at which time he was very young, and of no judgment ; and, if God had not sent us • Hakluyt, 642, 643. 282 ENGLISH SEAMEN another help, we might have wandered a whole year in that labyrinth of rivers ere we had found any way, either out or in, especially after we were past ebbing and flowing, which was in four days. For I know all the earth doth not yield the like confluence of streams and branches,^ the one crossing the other so many times, and all so fair and large, and so like one to another as no man can tell which to take. And if we went by the sun or compass, hoping thereby to go directly one way or other, yet that way we were also carried in a circle amongst multitudes of islands, and every island so bordered with high trees as no man could see any farther than the breadth of the river, or length of the reach/'-(- Having, however, entered a stream, which Raleigh, assum- * Raleigh has not exaggerated here. "The Orinoco, at nearly forty leagues from the sea, forms, like the Nile, a kind of fan, strewed over with a multitude of little islands, that divide it into a number of branches and channels, and force it to discharge itself through this labyrinth into the sea by an infinity of mouths, occupying an extent of more than sixty leagues. These islands multiply themselves on the coast in such a manner, that the mouths of the Orinoco are very numerous, vi'hile those that are navigable are very few. They reckon about fifty mouths, and only seven capable of receiving vessels of large burthen. The navigator who should enter by a mouth not navigable, would either be shipwrecked or lost in the innumerable channels formed in every direction by the Goaraunos Islands, or perish by hunger, or fall a prey to the savage Indians who inhabit those very isles. Those Indians themselves, born among the mouths of the river, living only by a fishery that obliges them incessantly to navigate in the openings and inlets of the islands which they exclusively possess and inhabit, amphibious, as one may say they are, frequently lose themselves, and are compelled to seek for the current, that they may let it carry them to sea, in order to enter, after discovering where they are, by the right channel for their return. I say seek for the current ; and this would seem a paradox, did I not apprise the reader that there is a certain skill necessary to discover it, which the Indians alone, in a kind of pre-eminence, possess. These channels are so numerous, and have, such various directions, that, for the most part, no current is to be perceived ; in others, the eddies and winds establish false currents, which carry up, instead of down, the river. The use of the compass itself does not always, when you are once lost, secure you from wandering for several days among the Goaraunos Islands, and, in consequence, making a circuit round them, returning to the very point from whence you set out, believing the whole time that you are either ascending or descending " (Depons, Eng. Tran., ii., 820). " The labyrinth of channels," says Humboldt, " that leads to the little mouths {bocas chicas) changes daily in depth and figure. The fear of the small mouths has now almost vanished ; and enemies' ships, which have never navigated in those parts, find officious and experienced guides in the Guaraons " {Eng. Tran., v., 724). t Hakluyt, 643. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 283 ing that they were the first Christians who ever came therein (and in remembrance, perhaps, of his friend Spenser and the Faery Queen), called the River of the Red Cross, they spied three Indians in a canoe ; and, by the swiftness of his barge, rowing with eight oars, overtook them before they could make the shore. Some people on the banks, shadowed under the thick wood, ''gazed on with a doubtful conceit what might befall the men thus taken" ; and, perceiving that no violence was offered them, they then showed themselves, and proposed to traffic for such things as they had. Raleigh accordingly tarried there awhile, during which time the Aruacan, Ferdin- ando, would needs go ashore to fetch some fruit, and drink with the natives, and see the place, and make acquaintance with the lord of it for another occasion. He took his brother with him ; but when they came to the village the lord of the island endeavoured to seize them, with the intention of put- ting them to death, because "they had brought a strange nation into their territory to spoil and destroy them ". But Ferdinando, " being quick and of a disposed body, slipt their fingers and ran into the woods ; and his companion, being the better footman of the two, recovered the creek's mouth where the barge was staying, and called out that his brother was slain. With that," says Raleigh, "we set hands on one of them that was next us, a very old man, and brought him into the barge ; assuring him, that if we had not our pilot again we would presently cut off his head." The old man being made to understand this, cried out to his countrymen to save Ferdinando ; " but they followed him notwithstanding, and hunted after him upon the foot with the deer-dogs, and with so main a cry that all the woods echoed with the shout they made : but at the last this poor chased Indian recovered the water side and got upon a tree, and, as we were coasting, leapt down and swam to the barge, half dead with fear. But our good hap was that we kept the other old Indian, which we handfasted to redeem our pilot withal ; for, being natural of those rivers, we assured ourselves he knew the way better than any strangers could. And, indeed, but for this chance 1 think we had never found the way either to Guiana, or back to our ships ; for Ferdinando after a few days knew nothing at all, nor which way to turn ; yea, and many times the old man himself was in great doubt which river to take."* ♦ Hakluyt, 643. 284 ENGLISH SEAMEN Two branches of the Tivitiva* nation inhabited those islands. "These," says Raleigh, "are a very goodly people, and very valiant, and have the most manly speech and most deliberate -f that ever I heard, of what nation soever. In the summer they have houses upon the ground as in other places ; in the winter they dwell upon the trees, where they build very artificial | towns and villages ; for between May and September the river Orinoco rises to thirty feet upright, and then are those islands overflowed twenty feet high above the level of the ground, saving some few raised grounds in the middle of them, and for this cause they are enforced to live in this manner. They never eat of anything that is set or sown ; and as at home they use neither planting nor other manurance, so when they come abroad they refuse to feed of aught but of that which Nature without labour bringeth forth. They use the tops of palmitos for bread, and kill deer, fish, and porks, for the rest of their sustenance. They have also many sorts of fruits that grow in the woods, and great variety of birds and fowl."§ "Those nations that dwell upon the branches called Capuri and Macureo are for the most part carpenters of canoes, for they make the most and fairest canoes, and sell them into Guiana for gold, and into Trinidad for tobacco, in the excessive taking whereof they exceed all nations. And notwithstanding the moistness of the air in which they live, the hardness of their diet, and the great labours * Raleigh calls the one Ciawani, and the other Waraweeti : in the latter Humboldt recognises the Indian name of the Uaraus, the Guaraons of the Spaniards (vol. v., 728). t Gumilla, on the contrary, says that they speak very rapidly, — son muy veloces en su pronunciacion (vol. i., 143). :J:"The navigator, in proceeding along the channels of the delta of the Orinoco at night, sees with surprise the summit of the palm trees illumin- ated by large fires. These are the habitations of the Guaraons (Tivitivas and Waraweeties of Raleigh), which are suspended from the trunks of trees. These tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle on a layer of moist clay the fire necessary for their household wants " (Humboldt, v., 728). Gumilla's account of this roosting tribe agrees with Raleigh's, in describing their towns or villages as very artificial, for he speaks of their streets and plazas ; but he places them upon poles, above the reach of the inundation, not in the trees. These accounts may be reconciled by supposing that some hordes raised their habitations in this manner where the ground was more elevated ; and that others, in lower situations, or when the plague of mosquitoes was less endurable, roosted. S Hakluyt, 644. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 285 they suffer to hunt, fish, and fowl for their living, in all my life, neither in the Indies, nor in Europe, did I never behold a more goodly, or better favoured people, or a more manly. They were wont to make war upon all nations, and especially on the cannibals, so as none durst without a good strength trade by those rivers ; but of late they are at peace with their neighbours, all holding the Spaniards for a common enemy. When their commanders die, they use great lamentations ; and when they think the flesh of their bodies is putrefied, and fallen from the bones, then they take up the carcass again, and hang it in the cacique's house that died, and deck his scull with feathers of all colours, and hang all his gold plates about the bones of his arms, thighs, and legs. Those nations which are called Aruacas, which dwell on the coast of Orinoco (of which place and nation our Indian pilot was), are dispersed in many other places, and do use to beat the bones of their lords into powder, and their wives and friends drink it all in their several sorts of drink." * Passing up with the flood and anchoring during the ebb, they went on, till on the third day their galley grounded, and stuck so fast that they feared their discovery must end there, and fourscore and ten of their men be left to inhabit, like rooks, upon trees, with these nations ; but on the morrow, after casting out all her ballast, "with tugging and hauling to and fro," they got her afloat. "At four days' end," says Raleigh, " we fell into as goodly a river as ever I beheld, which was called the Great Amana, which ran more directly, without windings and turnings, than the other. But soon after the flood of the sea left us ; and being enforced either by main strength to row against a violent current, or to return as wise as we set out, we had then no shift but to persuade the com- panies that it was but two or three days' work, and therefore desired them to take pains, every gentleman and others taking their turn to row, and to spell one the other at the hour's end. Every day we passed by goodly branches of rivers, some fall- ing from the west, others from the east, into Amana. When three days were overgone, our companies began to despair, the weather being extreme hot, the river bordered with very high trees that kept away the air, and the current against us every day stronger than other : but we once more commanded • Hakluyt, 644. 286 ENGLISH SEAMEN our pilots to promise an end the next day, and used it so long, as we were driven to assure them from four reaches of the river to three, and so to two, and so to the next reach ; but so long we laboured that many days were spent, and we driven to draw ourselves to harder allowance, our bread even at the last, and no drink at all; and ourselves so wearied and scorched, and doubtful withal whether we should ever per- form it or no, the heat increasing as we drew towards the line, for we were now in five degrees. The farther we went on (out victual decreasing and the air breeding great faintness) we grew weaker and weaker, when we had most need of strength and ability, for hourly the river ran more violently than other against us ; and the barge, wherries, and ship's boat had spent all their provisions, so as we were brought into des- pair and discomfort, had we not persuaded all the company that it was but one day's work more to attain the land, where we should be relieved of all we wanted ; and if we returned that we should be sure to starve by the way, and that the world would also laugh us to scorn." * Some relief, however, they found by shooting "birds of all colours, carnation, crimson, orange, tawney, purple, watchet, and of all other sorts, both simple and mixed, without which they had been in a very hard case ". The old Indian whom they had pressed into their service offered to bring them to a town of the Aruacas, where they should find store of bread, hams, fish, and of the country wines ; but to reach it they must leave the galley at anchor, and enter a river on the right hand with the barge and wherries : departing at noon, he said, they might return ere night. Accordingly Sir Walter and Captains GifFord and Cal- field set out with sixteen musketeers upon this quest, taking no provisions, because they supposed the place to be so near. After three hours' rowing they marvelled that no signs were to be seen of any dwelling ; and after three hours more, the sun being almost set, they began to suspect that the pilot meant to betray them, especially as he confessed that the Spaniards who had fled from Trinidad were, with some others of their own nation, in a village upon that river. It grew towards night; he was asked where the place was, and he replied but four reaches farther. When they had rowed four, * Hakluyt, 644, 645. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 287 and four more, they saw no sign ; and the men, heartbroken and tired, were ready to give up the ghost, for they had now come from the galley near forty miles. At last they deter- mined to hang the pilot ; and Raleigh says " if we had well known the way back again by night, he had surely gone ; but our own necessities pleaded sufficiently for his safety, for it was now dark as pitch, and the river began so to narrow itself, and the trees to hang over from side to side, so as we were driven with arming swords to cut a passage through those branches that covered the water". The poor old Indian still assured them that it was but a little farther, — only this one turning, and that turning. About an hour after midnight they saw a light ; and rowing towards it heard the dogs of the village. The cacique was gone with some canoes up the Orinoco to trade for gold, and to buy women of the caimibals : * there were therefore but few people in the village ; but Raleigh was well entertained in his dwelling, and after trad- ing in the morning with such of his people as came down, returned to the galley with some quantity of bread, fish, and fowl. The natives called this river the river of alligators, in their language. A negro, who was one of the galley's crew, venturing to swim ashore, was devoured by one.j* They now proceeded on their way up the great river till they were even at the last cast for want of victuals, when Gifford, who was before the other boat looking out for a place whereat to land and make a fire, espied four canoes coming down the stream. With no small joy he caused his men to try the uttermost of their strength in giving chase : the two larger canoes ran ashore, and the people into the woods; the two lesser escaped into some by-creek. Those which were * Raleigh says he " afterwards unfortunately passed by us as we rode at anchor in the port of Morequito in the dark of the night, and yet came so near us as his canoes grated against our barges. He left one of his company at the port of Morequito, by whom we understood that he had brought thirty young women, divers plates of gold, and had great stores of fine pieces of cotton cloth and cotton beds " (p. 645). t Hakluyt, 645, 646. " On both sides of this river we passed the most beautiful country that ever mine eyes beheld ; and whereas all that we had seen before was nothing but woods, prickly bushes, and thorns, here we beheld plains of twenty miles in length, the grass short and green, and in divers parts groves of trees by themselves, as if they had by all the art and labour in the world been so made of purpose ; and still as we rowed, the deer came down feeding by the water's side, as if they had been used to a keeper's call." 288 ENGLISH SEAMEN taken were laden with bread, and bound for the island of Margarita, where the Indians, who were Aruacas, had purposed to barter it. But in the lesser, Raleigh says, "there were three Spaniards, who, having heard of the defeat of their governor at Trinidad, and that we purposed to enter Guiana, came away in those canoes. One of these was a cavallero, as the captain of the Aruacas after told us, another a soldier, and the third a refiner. In the meantime, nothing on earth could be more welcome to us, next unto gold, than the great store of very excellent bread which we found in these canoes, for now our men cried, ' Let us go on, we care not how far ! ' " * Landing here where the canoes ran ashore, and sending parties in different directions in search of the fugitives, Raleigh says that as he was creeping through the bushes, he found an Indian basket hidden, which was the refiner's basket ; for there was quicksilver in it, saltpetre, and divers things for the trial of metals, and also the dust of such ore as he had refined ; but in those canoes which escaped there was a good quantity of ore and gold. He proceeds to say, " I then landed more men, and offered 500/. to what soldier soever could take one of those three Spaniards that we thought were landed : but our labours were in vain in that behalf, for they put them- selves in one of the small canoes, and so while the greater canoes were taking, they escaped. But seeking after the Spaniards we found the Aruacas hidden in the woods, which were pilots for the Spaniards, and rowed their canoes. I kept the chiefest for a pilot, and carried him with me to Guiana, by whom I understood where and in what countries the Spaniards had laboured for gold, though I made not the same known to all. For when the springs began to break, and the rivers to raise themselves so suddenly, as by no means we could abide the digging of any mines (especially for that the richest are defended with rocks of hard stones, which we call white spar, and that it required both time, men, and instru- ments for such a work), I thought it best not to hover there- abouts, lest if the same had been perceived by the company there would have been by this time many barques and ships set out ; and perchance other nations would also have gotten of ours for pilots ; so as both ourselves might have been pre- vented, and all our care taken for good usage of the people • Hakluyt, 646. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 289 been utterly lost, by those that only respect present profit, and such violence and insolence offered, as the nations which are borderers would have changed their desire of our love and defence into hatred. And for any longer stay to have brought a more quantity,* whosoever had seen or proved the fury of that river after it began to arise, and had been a month and odd days, as we were, from hearing aught from our ships, leaving them meanly manned, 400 miles off, would perchance have turned somewhat sooner than we did, if all the mountains had been gold, or rich stones. And, to say the truth, all the branches and small rivers which fell into the Orinoco were raised with such speed, as if we waded them over the shoes in the morning outward, we were covered to the shoulders homewards the very same day ; and to stay to dig our gold with our nails had been optLS laboris, but not ingeiiii. Such a quantity as would have served our turns we could not have had ; but a discovery of the mines, to our infinite disadvantage, we had made, and that could have been the best profit of further search or stay. For those mines are not easily broken, nor opened in haste ; and I could have retained a good quantity of gold ready cast, if I had not shot at another mark than present profit." f Having taken in their supply of bread, with "divers baskets of roots, which were excellent meat," Raleigh gave one of the canoes to the Aruacas, who were not less surprised than pleased at the treatment they met with ; for the Spaniards, " to the end," he says, " that none of the people in the passage towards Guiana, or in Guiana itself, might come to speech with us, persuaded all the nations that we were men-eaters ". Retaining the captain only of these people (whom the Spaniards had christened Martin), he dismissed his first pilot, Ferdinando, and the old native whom he had pressed into his service, giving them both such things as they desired, with sufficient victual ; and he wrote by them to the ships a letter, which was faithfully delivered. A day or two after, the galley grounded again ; they lay on the sand a whole night, and were more in despair to free her this time than before, because there was no tide or flood to help them ; all their provision was on board, and they feared that "all * " Which," he says. " I hear hath been often objected." t Hakluyt, 646, 647. 19 290 ENGLISH SEAMEN their hopes would now have ended in mishaps " ; but they fastened an anchor on the land, and with main strength drew her off. On the fifteenth day, to their great joy, they dis- covered afar off the mountains of Guiana, and "towards evening had a slant of a northerly wind that blew very strong," and this brought them in sight of the Great Orinoco, out of which the Amana, wherein they then were, descended. Here they discovered three canoes in the distance, and gave chase ; two of them passed out of sight, the third entered up the great river, on the right hand, to the westward, and there lay concealed ; " thinking," says Raleigh, " that we meant to take the way eastward, toward the province of Carapana, for that way the Spaniards keep, not daring to go upwards to Guiana, the people in those parts being all their enemies ; and those in the canoes thought us to have been those Spaniards that were fled from Trinidad, and had escaped killing ". Making after them, however, he came within call ; and having explained to them through his interpreter who he was, they came willingly alongside, gave him fish and tortoise eggs, and promised to return in the morning with their cacique, and to do him all other services they could. * That night they anchored at the trifurcation of three great branches of the river, the Amana being one ; and they landed there upon a fair sand, where they found thousands of tortoise eggs, which are "very wholesome meat, and greatly restor- ing " ; so that the men were now well filled and highly con- tented, both with their fare and the nearness of the land of Guiana, "which," he says, "appeared in sight". In the morning, according to the promise of his people, Toparimaca, the lord of that border, came with some thirty or forty followers, bringing divers sorts of fruits, and of his wine, bread, fish, and flesh; "whom we also feasted," says Raleigh, "as we could ; at least we drank good Spanish wine (whereof we had a small quantity in bottles), which above all things they love". Sir Walter says he conferred with this Toparimaca concerning the nearest way to Guiana. The cacique con- ducted them to his own port, and from thence some mile and half to his town, " where some of our captains caroused of his wine till they were reasonable pleasant ; for it is very strong with pepper, and the juice of divers herbs and fruits digested *Hakluyt, 647, 648. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 291 and purged : they keep it in great earthen pots of ten or twelve gallons, very clear and sweet, and are themselves at their meetings and feasts the greatest carousers and drunkards in the world ". Raleigh described the town as " very pleasant, standing on a little hill in an excellent prospect ; with goodly gardens a mile compass round about it, and two very fair and large ponds of excellent fish adjoining". Arowoca, he says, it was called ; the people were of the Nepoio nation. Here he saw two caciques, *' whereof one was a stranger that had been up the river in trade " ; his boats, people, and wife were encamped at the port where Raleigh had anchored : the other was of that country, a follower of Toparimaca. " They lay each of them on a cotton liamaca, which were then called Brazil beds by the English." Two women attended them, with six cups and a little ladle to fill them out of an earthen pitcher of wine, and so they drank each of them three of those cups at a time one to the other ; and in this sort they drink drunk at their feasts and meetings. Raleigh declares that in all his hfe he had never seen a better-favoured woman than the wife of the stranger cacique. " She was of good stature, with black eyes, fat of body, of an excellent countenance ; her hair almost as long as herself, tied up again in pretty knots ; and it seemed she stood not in that awe of her husband as the rest, for she spake, and discoursed, and drank among the gentlemen and captains, and was very pleasant, knowing her own comeliness, and taking great pride therein." * Here he saw very aged people, " so old that all their sinews and veins might be perceived, without any flesh, but even as a case covered with skin ! " Toparimaca gave him his own brother, an old man, for pilot, who knew the river perfectly, both by day and night. "And it shall be requisite," he says, " for any man that passeth it to have such a pilot ; for it is four, five, and six miles over in many places, and twenty miles in other places, with wonderful eddies and strong currents, many great islands and divers shoals, and many dangerous rocks ; and besides, upon any increase of wind, so great a billow, as we were sometimes in great peril of drowning in the galley, for the small boats durst not come from the shore * Hakluyt, 648. Raleigh says, " I have seen a lady in England so like to her, as, but for the difference of colour, I would have sworn might have been the same ". 292 ENGLISH SEAMEN but when it was very fair." The next day they hastened thence, with an easterly wind, which spared their arms from rowing. Having passed an island called Assapana, which he computed to be some five and twenty miles in length and six in breadth, he anchored for the night at a smaller island, and sent from thence in the morning two Guianians, as he calls them, whom he brought from Toparimaca's town, to inform the chief of Putyma of their coming ; this was a follower of Topeawari, chief lord of Aromaca, who succeeded Morequito, which Morequito Berrio had put to death. This town being far within the land, he did not appear the next day, and they did not wait for him. They sought rather to anchor by the island than by the main, because of the tortoise eggs which were there found in great abundance, and also because the ground was more convenient for casting the net for fish, the main banks being for the most part stony and high, and the rocks of a blue metalline colour, like the best steel ore, which Raleigh said he assuredly took it to be. The next day, the banks on the right side "showed very perfect red," and he landed a party to discover what manner of country it was ; they reported that it appeared from the highest tree they could get upon to be a plain level as far as they could discern ; and the pilot confirmed this, saying they were called the Plains of the Sayma, and that the same level reached to Cumana and Caracas, in the West Indies, which was 120 leagues to the north. Four powerful nations inhabited these plains, — the Sayma, * the Assawai, the Wikeri (then the most powerful), and the Aroras, who, he said, were black as negroes, but had smooth hair ; " and these are very valiant, or rather desperate people, and have the most strong poison on their arrows, and are the most dangerous of all nations ". -I* Raleigh made no tarriance here, for he feared hourly lest the rains should begin ; and then " it had been impossible to have gone any farther up, notwithstanding that there was every day a strong breeze and easterly wind ". The searching the country on the Guiana side he deferred till his return. On the day following, a canoe came with messengers from Putyma, to whom he had sent the Nepoios ; but the invita- tion to anchor at his port was declined till they should be on * These are the Chaymas of Humboldt ; and the Wikeri are the Guay- cuerias, or Guaikeries. t Hakluyt, 6i8, 619. SIR WALTER RALEIGH S9S the way back. On the fifth day, they reached as high up as the province of Aromaca, Morequito's country : they anchored off an island ; and that night it was that the cacique Aramiary, to whose town they had made their long and hungry voyage out of the Amana, passed by them. On the morrow they anchored at the port of Morequito, and sent one of their pilots to seek the King of Aromaca, uncle to him whom Berrio had put to death. " Before noon the next day, he came to us," says Raleigh, "on foot from his house, which was fourteen English miles (himself being 1 1 years old), and returned on foot the same day ; and with him many of the borderers, with many women and children that came to wonder at our nation, and to bring us down victual, which they did in great plenty, as venison, pork, hens, chickens, fowl, fish, with divers sorts of excellent fruits and roots, and great abundance of pinas, the princess of fruits that grow under the sun. They brought us also store of bread and of other things.* After the old king had rested awhile in a little tent that I caused to be set up, I began by my interpreter to discourse with him of the death of Morequito, his predecessor, and afterwards of the Spaniards ; and ere I went any farther, I made him know the cause of my coming thither ; whose servant I was ; and that the queen's pleasure was I should undertake the voyage for their defence, and to deliver them from the tyranny of the * They brought also a sort of paraquitos, no bigger than wrens, and of all other sorts both small and great. "One of them," says Raleigh, " gave me a beast called by the Spaniards armadilla, which they call cassacam, which seemeth to be all barred over with small plates, some- what like to a rhinoceros ; with a white horn growing on his hinder parts, as big as a great hunting horn, which they use to wind instead of a trumpet. Monardus writeth that a Uttle of the powder of that horn put into the ear, cureth deafness." Monardus is not truly quoted by Raleigh, what the doctor of Seville says affording no support to the absurd description of the animal, which Sir Walter gives as if he could himself affirm its truth. The passage in Frampton's translation of this curious book is as follows: "He (the armadillo) hath his virtue only in the bone of his tail ; which being made small into powder, and taking so much thereof as the head of a great pin, made in little balls, putting it into the ear having grief therein, it taketh it away marvellously ; and also, if there be any noise, or sound- ing in the head, with any deafness, it worketh a great effect in many persons that have used it, and they have been healed therewith. And the lord bishop certified me that he had seen it proved many times, with great admiration ; so that it is a thing to be marvelled at, as having virtues in a place so hidden " (part ii., p. 73). 294 ENGLISH SEAMEN Spaniards ; dilating at large (as I had done to those of Trinidad) Her Majesty's greatness, her justice, her charity to all oppressed nations, with as many of the rest of her beauties and virtues as either I could express or they conceive. All which being with great admiration attentively heard and marvellously admired, I began to sound the old man as touching Guiana and the state thereof, — what sort of common- wealth it was, how governed, of what strength and policy, how far it extended, and what nations were friends or enemies adjoining, and finally of the distance, and way to enter the same.* "He told me that himself and his people, with all those down the river towards the sea, as far as Emeria, the province of Carapana, were of Guiana, but that they called themselves Orenoqueponi ; and that all the nations between the river and those mountains in sight, called Wacarima, were of the same cast and appellation ; and that on the other side of those mountains of Wacarima, there was a large plain (which after I discovered in my return), called the valley of Amario- capana : in all that valley the people were also of the ancient Guianians. I asked what nations those were which inhabited on the farther side of those mountains beyond the valley of Amariocapana ; he answered, with a great sigh (as a man which had inward feeling of the loss of his country and liberty, especially for that his eldest son was slain in a battle on that side of the mountains, whom he most entirely loved), that he remembered in his father's lifetime, when he was very old, and himself a young man, that there came down into that large valley of Guiana a nation from so far off as the sun slept, (for such were his own words), with so great a multitude as they could not be numbered nor resisted ; and that they wore large coats, and hats of crimson colour, which colour he ex- pressed by showing a piece of red wood wherewith my tent was supported ; and that they were called Orejones and Epuremei : these had slain and rooted out so many of the ancient people as there were leaves in the wood upon all the trees, and had now made themselves lords of all, even to that mountain foot, called Curaa, saving only of two nations, the one called Iwarawaqueri, and the other Cassipagotos ; and that in the last battle fought between the Epuremei and the * Hakluyt, 650. SIR WALTER RALEIG rT) 295 Iwarawaqueri, his eldest son was chosen to carry to the aid of the Iwarawaqueri a great troop of the Orenoqueponi, and was there slain, with all his people and friends, and that he had now remaining but one son. And further, he told me that those Epuremei had built a great town, called Macareguarai, at the said mountain foot, at the beginning of the great plains of Guiana, which have no end ; and that their houses have many rooms, one over the other ; and that therein the great King of the Orejones and Epuremei kept 3000 men to defend the borders against them, and withal daily to invade and slay them : but that of late years, since the Christians offered to invade his territories and those frontiers, they were all at peace, and traded one with another, saving only the Iwara- waqueri, and those other nations upon the head of the river of Caroli, called Cassipagotos (which we afterwards discovered), each one holding the Spaniard foi* a common enemy.* " After he had answered thus far, he desired leave to depart, saying that he had far to go, that he was old and weak, and was every day called for by death, which was also his own phrase. I desired him to rest with us that night, but I could not entreat him : but he told me that at my return from the country above, he would again come to us, and in the mean- time provide for us the best he could of all that his country yielded. The same night he returned to Orocotona, his own town ; so as he went that day eight and twenty miles, the weather being very hot, the country being situated between four and five degrees of the equinoctial. This Topeawari is held for the proudest and wisest of all the Orenoqueponi ; and so he behaved himself towards me in all his answers at my return, as I marvelled to find a man of that gravity and judgment, and of so good discourse, that had no help of learning nor breed." f The next morning Raleigh sailed westward, up to view what he calls the famous river Caroli, | "as well because it was marvellous of itself, as that he understood it led to the strongest nations of all the frontiers that were enemies to the ♦ Hakluyt, 651. flbid. X The Carony (Humboldt). " Upon this river," Raleigh says, '• are the Canuri, which are governed by a woman, who is inheretrix of that province, who came far off to see our nation, and asked us divers questions of her majesty, being much delighted with the discourse of her majesty's greatness, and wondering at such reports as we truly made of her high- ness's many virtues " (Hakluyt, 652). 296 ENGLISH SEAMEN Epuremei, which are subject to Inga, Emperor of Guiana and Manoa ". On the day following they arrived at the mouth of this river, having long heard its "great roar and fall". But when they came to enter, thinking to have gone up some forty miles, they were not able with an eight-oared barge to row a stone's cast in an hour; "and yet," says he, "the river is as broad as the Thames at Woolwich, and we tried both sides, and the middle, and every part of it". They encamped, therefore, on the banks, and sent an Indian to inform the nations upon that river of their being there, and that they were enemies of the Spaniards, and desired to see the lords of that province; "for it was on this river side (in Raleigh's words) that Morequito slew the friar and those nine Spaniards which came from Manoa, the city of Inga, and took from them 40,000 pezos of gold. The next day there came down a cacique, called Wanuretona, with many people, and all store of provisions to entertain us. And as I had before made known to Topeawari, so did I acquaint this cacique how I was sent by Her Majesty for the purpose aforesaid, and gathered also what I could of him touching the estate of Guiana ; and I found that those also of Caroli were not only enemies to the Spaniards, but most of all to the Epuremei, which abound in gold ; and by this Wanuretona, I had know- ledge that on the head of this river were three mighty nations, seated on a great lake, from whence this river descended, and were called Cassipagotos, Eparagotos, and Arawagotos ; and that all those, either against the Spaniards or the Epuremei, would join with us ; and that if we entered the land over the mountains of Curaa, we should satisfy ourselves with gold and all other good things. He told us further of a nation, called Iwarawaqueri (before spoken of), that held daily war with the Epuremei that inhabited Macareguarai, the first civil town of Guiana, of the subjects of Inga, the emperor." * By this time all the rivers were risen four or five feet, and it was not possible to row against the stream. Sir Walter sent a party of some thirty men to coast the river by land ; and if they could find guides at a town twenty miles distant, then they were to proceed to another great town called Capurepana, belonging to a cacique named Haharacoa, who was a nephew to old Topeawari, their "chiefest friend," and * Hakluyt, 651. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 297 whose town adjoined Macareguarai. A smaller party was sent with Captain Whiddon to look for any mineral stone along the river sides ; Raleigh, with GifFord, Calfield, and some half-dozen men, went overland to view "the strange overfalls of this river Caroli, which roared so far off," and also to see the plains adjoining, and the rest of the province of Canuri. " When we were come to the top of the first hills of the plains adjoining the river, we beheld," he says, " that wonderful breach of waters which ran down Caroli, and might from that mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, above twenty miles off; and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every one as high over the other as a church-tower, which fell with that fury that the rebound of water made it seem as if it had been all covered over with a great shower of rain ; and in some places we took it at the first for a smoke which had risen over some great town. For my own part, I was well persuaded from thence to have re- turned, being a very ill footman ; but the rest were all so desirous to go near the said strange thunder of waters as they drew me on by little and little, till we came into the next valley, where we might better discern the same. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more lovely prospects ; hills so raised here and there over the valleys, the river winding into divers branches ; the plains adjoining, without bush or stubble, all fair green grass ; the ground of hard sand, easy to march on either for horse or foot ; the deer crossing in every path ; the birds towards the evening singing on every tree, with a thousand several tunes ; cranes and herons, of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the river's side ; the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind ; and every stone that we stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by his complexion. Your lordship shall see of many sorts, and I hope some of them cannot be bettered under the sun ; and yet we had no means but with our daggers and fingers to tear them out here and there, the rocks being most hard, of that mineral spar afore- said, which is like a flint, and is altogether as hard, or harder ; and besides, the veins lie a fathom or two deep in the rocks. But we wanted all things requisite, save only our desires and good-will to have performed more, if it had pleased God." * ♦ Hakluyt, 652. " To be short, when both our companies returned, each of them brought also several sorts of stone, that appeared very fair, but were S98 ENGLISH SEAMEN Here Raleigh was informed that the lake Cassipa, from which the Caroli issued, was so large that it was above a day's journey for one of their canoes to cross, which he computed at about forty miles ; that many rivers fell into it ; that in the dry season great store of grains of gold was found in those rivers ; and that near another river called Arui, which ran through that lake, on a branch called Caora, were a nation of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders ; "which," he says, "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 Aromaca and Canuri affirm the same. They are called Ewaipanoma ; they are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long train of hair groweth backward between their shoulders. The son of Topeawari, which I brought with me into England, told me that they are the most mighty men of all the land, and use bows and arrows, and clubs, thrice as big as any of Guiana or of the Orenoque- poni ; and that one of the Iwarawakeri took a prisoner of them the year before our arrival there, and brought him into the borders of Aromaia, his father's country. And further, when I seemed to doubt of it, he told me that it was no such as they found loose on the ground, and were for the most part but coloured, and had not any gold fixed on them ; yet such as had no judg- ment or experience kept all that glistened, and would not be persuaded but it was rich, because of the lustre ; and brought of those, and of mar- quesite withal from Trinidad ; and have delivered of those stones to be tried in many places, and have thereby bred an opinion that all the rest is of the same. Yet some of these stones I showed afterwards to a Spaniard of the Caracas, who told me that it was el tnadre del oro, that is, the mother of gold, and that the mine was farther in the ground. But it shall be found a weak policy in me either to betray myself, or my country, with imaginations ; neither am I so far in love with that lodging, watch- ing, care, peril, diseases, ill-savours, bad fare, and many other mischiefs that accompany these voyages, as to woo myself again unto any of them, were I not assured that the sun covereth not so much riches on any part of the earth " (Hakluyt, 659). He then holds out a hope of precious stones also. *' Capt. Whiddon and our chirurgeon, Nicholas Millechap, brought me a kind of stones like sapphires ; what they may prove I know not. I showed them to some of the Orenoqueponi, and they promised to bring me to a mountain that had of them very large pieces growing diamond-wise ; whether it be chrystal of the mountain, Bristol diamond, or sapphire, I do not yet know, but I hope the best. Sure I am that the place is as likely as those from whence all the rich stones are brought, and in the same height, or very near." SIR WALTER RALEIGH 299 wonder among them, but that they were as great a nation and as common as any other in all the provinces, and had of late years slain many hundreds of his father's people, and of other nations their neighbours ; but it was not my chance to hear of them till I was come away, and if I had but spoken one word of it while I was there, I might have brought one of them with me to put the matter out of doubt. Such a nation was written of by Mandeville, whose reports were holden for fables many years ; and yet, since the East Indies were discovered , we find his relation true of such things as heretofore were held incredible. Whether it be true or not, the matter is not great ; neither can there be any profit in the imagination : for mine own part, I saw them not ;. but I am resolved that so many people did not all combine or fore- think to make the report. When I came to Cumana, in the West Indies, afterwards, by chance I spake with a Spaniard dwelling not far from thence, a man of great travel ; and after he knew that I had been in Guiana, and so far directly west as Caroli, the first question he asked me was, whether I had seen any of the Ewaipanoma, which are those without heads : who being esteemed a most honest man of his word and in all things else, told me that he had seen many of them." * Raleigh obtained a more faithful account of the Falls of the Orinoco than he gave as an eye-witness of those of the * Hakluyt, 652, 653. Raleigh adds, " I may not name him, because it may be for his disadvantage, but he is well known to Monsieur Mucheron's son of London, and to Peter Mucheron, merchant, of the Flemish ship that was there in trade, who also heard what he avowed to be true of those people ". It would be well if there were nothing in Raleigh's relation more dis- creditable to him than what he says of the Acephali. That fable, un- doubtedly, he may have heard upon the spot, Humboldt (v., 176), says, " The forests of Sipapo are altogether unknown, and there the missionaries place the nation of the Rayas, who have their mouth in the navel (called Rayas, on account of the pretended analogy with the fish of that name, the mouth of which seems as if forced backward below the body). An old Indian whom we met at Carichana, and who boasted of having often eaten human flesh, had seen these Acephali ' with his own eyes 1 ' These absurd fables are spread as far as the Llanos, where you are not always permitted to doubt the existence of the Raya Indians. In every zone intolerance accompanies credulity ; and it might be said that the fictions of ancient geographers had passed from one hemisphere to the other, did we not know that the most fantastic productions of the imagination, like the works of nature, furnish everywhere a certain analogy of aspect and of form." 300 ENGLISH SEAMEN Caroli. Ships of burden, he said, could not pass beyond a certain island by reason of a most forcible overfall and current of water ; but in the eddy, smaller vessels might be drawn even to Peru itself; for ships it was navigable little less than a thousand miles, and for lesser vessels nearly two thousand ; and by it, not Peru only, but the Nuevo Reyno and Popayan might be invaded, as well as the great empire of the Inga. He inquired concerning the course of the river which joined it : but it was now no time to linger, the fury of the Orinoco beginning daily to threaten them with danger in their return, '' for no half-day passed but the river began to rage and over- flow very fearfully ; and the rains came down in terrible showers, and gusts in great abundance ; and our men," says he, " began to cry out for want of shift, for no man had place to bestow any other apparel than that which he wore on his back, and that was thoroughly washed on his body for the most part ten times in one day ; and we had now been well near a month, every day passing to the westward farther and farther from our ships". They turned back, therefore, and, passing down the stream, went without labour and against the wind little less than 100 miles a day. As soon as they came to the port of Morequito, he sent for old Topeawari, "with whom," says he, "I much desired to have further conference, and also to deal with him for some one of his country to bring with us into England, as well to learn the language as to confer withal by the way. Within three hours after my messenger came to him, he arrived also, and with him such a rabble of all sorts of people, and every one laden with somewhat, as if it had been a great market or fair in England ; and our hungry companies clustered thick and threefold among their baskets, every one laying hand on what he liked. After he had rested awhile in my tent, I shut out all but ourselves and my interpreter, and told him that I knew that both the Epuremei and the Spaniards were enemies to him, his country and nations ; that the one had conquered Guiana already, and the other sought to regain the same from them both ; and therefore I desired him to instruct me what he could, both of the passage into the golden parts of Guiana, and to the civil towns and apparelled people of Inga. He gave me an answer to this effect ; first, that he could not perceive that I meant to go onward towards the city of Manoa, for neither the time of the year served, neither could he SIR WALTER RALEIGH' 301 perceive any sufficient numbers for such an enterprise ; and if I did, I was sure with all my company to be buried there, for the emperor was of that strength that many times so many men were too few. Besides, he gave me this good counsel, and advised me to hold it in mind (as for himself he knew he could not live till my return), that I should not offer by any means hereafter to invade the strong parts of Guiana, without the help of all those nations which were also their enemies ; for that it was impossible without them either to be conducted, to be victualled, or have aught carried with us, our people not being able to endure the march in so great heat and travel, unless the borderers gave them help to carry with them both their meat and furniture. For he remembered that in the plains of Macaraguarai 300 Spaniards were overthrown, who were tired out and had none of the borderers to their friends ; but meeting their enemies as they passed the frontier, were environed on all sides, and the people setting the long dry grass on fire, smothered them, so as they had no breath to fight, -nor could discern their enemies for the great smoke. * "He told me farther, that four days' journey from his town was Macaraguarai, and that those were the next and nearest of the subjects of Inga, and of the Epuremei, and the first town of apparelled and rich people ; and that all those plates of gold which were scattered among the borderers, and carried to other nations far and near, came from the said Macaraguarai, and were there made ; but that those of the land within were far finer, and were fashioned after the images of men, beasts, birds, and fishes. I asked him whether he thought that those companies I had then with me were sufficient to take that town, or no. He told me that he thought they were. I then asked him whether he would assist me with guides, and some companies of his people to join with us ? He answered that he would go himself with all the borderers, if the rivers did remain fordable ; upon this condition that I would leave with him, till my return again, fifty soldiers, which he undertook to victual. I answered that I had not above fifty good men in all there, the rest were labourers and rowers ; and that I had no provision to leave with them of powder and shot, apparel, or aught else ; and ♦ Hakluyt, 654. 302 ENGLISH SEAMEN that without those things necessary for their defence, they should be in danger of the Spaniards in my absence, who I knew would use the same measure towards mine that I offered theirs at Trinidad. And although upon the motion Captain Calfield, Captain Greenville, my nephew John Gilbert, and divers others were desirous to stay, yet I was resolved that they must needs have perished ; for Berrio expected daily a supply out of Spain, and looked also hourly for his son to come down from Nuevo Reyno de Grenada, with many horse and foot ; and had also in Valencia, in the Caracas, 200 horse ready to march ; and I could not have spared above forty, and had not any store at all of powder, lead, or match, to have left with them ; nor any other provision, either spade, pickaxe, or aught else to have fortified withal. When I had given him reason that I could not at this time leave him such a company, he then desired me to forbear him and his country for that time ; for he assured me that I should no sooner be three days from the coast, but those Epuremei would invade him, and destroy all the remains of his people and friends, if he should any way either guide us, or assist us against them.* " He further alleged that the Spaniards sought his death ; and as they had already murdered his nephew Morequito, lord of that province, so they had him seventeen days in a chain before he was king of the country, and led him like a dog from place to place, until he had paid an hundred plates of gold, and divers chains of spleen-stones for his ransom. And now, since he became owner of that province, that they had many times laid wait to take him ; and that they would be now more vehement when they should under- stand of his conference with the English. 'And because,' said he, * they would the better displant me, if they cannot lay hands on me, they have gotten a nephew of mine called Eparacano, whom they have christened Don Juan, and his son Don Pedro, whom they have also apparelled and armed, by whom they seek to make a party against me in mine own country ; he had also taken to wife one Louiana, of a strong family, which are borderers and neighbours ; and myself now being old and in the hands of death, am not able to travel nor to shift as when I was of younger years.' He therefore * Hakluyt, 655. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 303 prayed us to defer it till the next year, when he would under- take to draw in all the borderers to serve us ; and then also it would be more seasonable to travel, for at this time of the year we should not be able to pass any river, the waters would be so grown ere our return. He farther told me that I could not desire so much to invade Macaraguarai and the rest of Guiana, but that the borderers would be more vehe- ment than I, for he yielded for a chief cause, that in the wars with the Epuremei they were spoiled of their women, and that their wives and daughters were taken from them ; so as for their own parts they desired nothing of the gold or treasure for their labours, but only to recover women from the Epure- mei ; for he farther complained very sadly (as it had been a matter of great consequence), that whereas they were wont to have ten or twelve wives, they were now enforced to con- tent themselves with three or four, and that the lords of the Epuremei had fifty or a hundred." Sir Walter then adds, " that of a truth they warred more for women than either for gold or dominion, because the chiefs desired many children of their own, to increase their race and kindred, in which their greatest trust and strength consisted. Divers of Topeawari's followers," he says, "desired him to make haste again, that they might sack the Epuremei ; and when he asked them of what ? they replied of their women for our- selves, and their gold for you." * Raleigh and his companions now fell into consideration whether it had been of better advice to have entered Maca- raguarai and begun a war upon the Inga at this time, yea or no, if the time of the year and all things else had sorted. " For mine own part," he says, " as we were not able to march it for the rivers, neither had any such strength as was requi- site, and durst not abide the coming of the winter, or to tarry any longer from our ships, I thought it were evil counsel to have attempted it at that time, although the desire of gold will answer many objections. But it would have been in mine opinion an utter overthrow to the enterprise, if the same should be hereafter by His Majesty attempted. For then, whereas now they have heard we were enemies to the Spaniards and were sent by Her Majesty to relieve them, they would as good cheap have joined with the Spaniards at * Hakluyt, 655. S04 ENGLISH SEAMEN our return, as to have yielded unto us, when they had proved that we came both for one errand, and that both sought but to sack and spoil them. But as yet our desire of gold, or our purpose of invasion is not known to them of the empire ; and it is likely that if Her Majesty undertake the enterprise, they will rather submit themselves to her obedience than to the Spaniards, of whose cruelty both themselves and the borderers have already tasted. And, therefore, till I had known Her Majesty's pleasure, I would rather have lost the sack of one or two towns (although they might have been very profitable) than to have defaced or endangered the future hope of so many millions, and the great good and rich trade which England may be possessed of thereby. I am assured now that they will all die even to the last man, against the Spaniards, in hope of our succour and return ; whereas, other- wise, if I had either laid hands on the borderers, or ransomed the lords, as Berrio did, or invaded the subjects of Inga, I know all had been lost for hereafter." * When Topeawari understood that Raleigh was contented to forbear the enterprise against the Epuremei till the next year, he freely gave him his only son to take to England, hoping that though he himself had but a short time to live, this son might by means of the English be established after him ; and Sir Walter receiving this pledge, left with him two of his people to learn the language : the one was his own boy, Hugh Goodwin by name ; the other, Francis Sparrow, a servant of Captain Gifford, was " desirous to tarry, and could describe a country with his pen ". This person was instructed to travel to Macaraguarai, with certain merchandise left with him for that purpose ; his real object being " to learn the place, and, if it were possible, to go on to the great city of Manoa". They then weighed anchor, and kept the Guiana side on their descent, because they had ascended by the western side. At Aromaca they had met Putyma, the cacique, whom they had promised to visit on their return ; he accompanied them now to his own port, and promised to show them a mountain which had stones of the colour of gold. Raleigh began the march with him to this mountain, which he calls Iconuri ; but not finding himself able to go on, he sent Key mis with five men, ordering him not to return to • Hakluyt, 655, 656. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 305 Putyma's port, called Chiparepare, but to take leisure, and march down the valley as far as the river Cumaca, where he promised to meet him. Raleigh then continued his way down the stream till he "came as far as the land called Ariacoa," where the Orinoco "divideth itself into three great branches, each of them being most goodly rivers ". There he again divided his company, sending Thyn and Greenville with the galley the nearest way, and taking, with the other boats, the branch called Cararoopana, that he might acquaint him- self with one of the greatest lords of all the Orenoqueponi, Carapana by name. And having reached the place where Keymis had been instructed to meet him, he left Captain Eynos and Master Porter there to expect his coming, and proceeded towards Emeria, which was Carapana's province. " When it grew towards sunset," says he, " we entered a river called Winicapora, where I was informed of the mountain of crystal, to which in truth, for the length of the way, and the evil season of the year, I was not able to march. We saw it afar off, and it appeared like a white church-tower of an ex- ceeding height. There falleth over it a mighty river, which toucheth no part of the side of the mountain, but rusheth over the top of it, and falleth to the ground with so terrible a noise and clamour as if a thousand great bells were knocked one against another. I think there is not in the world so strange an overfall, nor so wonderful to behold. Berrio told me that there were diamonds and other precious stones in it, and that they shined very far off; but what it hath I know not, neither durst he nor any of his men ascend to the top of the said mountain, those people adjoining to it being his enemies, as they were, and the way to it so impassable." * Raleigh marched, however, to a town called after the name of the river, whereof the captain was one Timitwara. "It was on one of their feast days ; we found them," he says, "all as drunk as beggars, and the pots walking from one to an- other without rest. We that were weary and hot with marching, were glad of the plenty (though a small quantity satisfied us, their drink being very strong and heady), and so rested ourselves awhile. After we had fed we drew ourselves back to our boats upon the river, and there came to us all the lords of the country, with all such kind of victual as the place * Hakluyt, 656, 657. 20 S06 ENGLISH SEAMEN yielded, and with their delicate wine of pinas, and with abund- ance of hens and other provisions, and of those stones which we call spleen-stones." Timitwara offered to conduct him to the top of the crystal mountain, which he called Wacarima. The caciques here told him that their lord Carapana had withdrawn to Cairoma, some Spaniards who lay at his house having persuaded him that these strangers would destroy him and his country; "but when these caciques," he says, *'saw that we came as enemies to the Spaniards only, and not so much as harmed any of those nations, no, though we found them to be of the Spaniards' own servants, they assured us that Carapana would be as ready to serve us as any of the lords of the provinces which we had passed ; and that he durst do no other till this day but entertain the Spaniards, his country lying so directly in their way, and next of all other to any entrance that should be made in Guiana on that side. And they farther assured us that it was not for fear of our coming that he was removed, but to be acquitted of the Spaniards, or any other that should come hereafter. For the province of Cairoma is situate at the mountain foot which divideth the plains of Guiana from the countries of the Orinoqueponi, by means whereof if any should come in our absence into his towns, he would slip over the mountains into the plains of Guiana among the Epuremei, where the Spaniards durst not follow him without great forces. But in mine opinion, or, rather I assure myself, that Carapana (being a notable wise and subtle fellow, a man of 100 years of age, and therefore of great experience), is removed to look on ; and if he find that we return strong he will be ours ; if not, he will excuse his departure to the Spaniards, and say it was for fear of our coming." * So, "thinking it bootless to seek farther for the old fox," and time to return toward the north, they found it a weari- some way to recover the point where they had parted from the galley, especially as all the night long it was stormy and dark, and full of thunder and great showers, so that they were driven to keep close by the banks in their small boats, being all heartily afraid both of the billow and terrible current of the river. By the next morning they came to the place where Eynos and Porter were left to wait for Key mis ; they had • Hakluyt, 657, 658. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 307 heard nothing of him ; and Raleigh, in great doubt what might have become of him, rowed a league or two up the river, shooting off pieces all the way ; on the following morning he had the joy of hearing a piece answer. Taking the party on board, they took leave of Putyma, their guide, who of all others most lamented their departure, and offered to send his son with them to England, if they could have tarried till he sent back to his town. But Raleigh says their hearts were cold to behold the great rage and increase of Orinoco, and therefore they departed, and steered toward the west till they recovered the three forks, that they might put down the stream after the galley. They found it, as appointed, in the port of Toparimaca, and that same evening proceeded with very foul weather and terrible thunder and showers, for the winter was come on very far. "The best was," he continues, "we went no less than an hundred miles a day down the river ; but by the way we entered it was impossible to return, for that the river of Amana, being in the bottom of the bay of Guanipa, cannot be sailed back by any means, both the breeze and current of the sea were so forcible ; and therefore we followed a branch called Capuri, which entered into the sea eastward of our ships, to the end we might bear with them before the wind ; and it was not without need, for we had by this way as much to cross of the main' sea after we came to the river's mouth as between Gravelines and Dover, in such boats as you have heard. And, to be short, when we were arrived at the sea-side, then grew our greatest doubt, and the bitterest of all our journey forepassed ; for I protest before God that we were in a most desperate estate ; for the same night which we anchored in the mouth of the Capuri, where it falleth into the sea, there arose a mighty storm, and the river's mouth was at least a league broad, so as we ran before night close under the land with our small boats, and brought the galley as near as we could, but she had as much ado to live as could be, and there wanted little of her sinking and all those in her. For mine own part, I confess, I was very doubtful which way to take, either to go over in the eight-oared galley, there being but six feet water over the sands for two leagues together, and that also in the channel, and she drew five ; or to adventure in so great a billow, and in so doubtful weather, to cross the seas in my barge. The longer we tarried the worse it was, and therefore I took 308 ENGLISH SEAMEN Captain Gifford, Captain Calfield, and my cousin Greenville into my barge ; and after it cleared up, about midnight, we put ourselves to God's keeping, and thrust out into the sea, leav- ing the galley at anchor, who durst not adventure but by daylight. And so being i all very sober and melancholy, one faintly cheering another to show courage, it pleased God that the next day about nine of the clock we discovered the island of Trinidad ; and steering for the nearest part of it, we kept the shore till we came to Curiapan, where we found our ships at anchor, than which there was never to us a more joyful sight." * Raleigh says, "If Captain Preston had not been persuaded that he should have come too late to Trinidad to have found us there (for the month which I promised to tarry for him there was expired before he could reach the coast of Spain), but that it had pleased God he might have joined with us, and that we had entered the country but some ten days sooner, as the rivers were overflown, we had adventured either to have gone to the great city of Manoa, or at least taken so many of the other cities and towns nearer at hand as would have made a royal return ; but it pleased not God so much to favour me at this time". "|- If the proposed junction had been effected, Raleigh would have had no inconsiderable force ; but no more progress could have been made in a discovery, the hopes of which were altogether chimerical, and little more injury could have been done to the Spaniards than they separately effected. Captain (afterwards Sir Amias) Preston, and Captain (after- wards Sir George I) Sommers, "both valiant gentlemen and discreet commanders, lay with two tall ships and a small pinnace a whole month at Plymouth, awaiting the coming of Captain Jones, their consort, who, through the bad dealing of those which he put in trust, could not make his ship ready * Hakluyt, 658, 659. •\-Ibid., 633. " If it shall be my lot," he proceeds, " to prosecute the same, I shall willingly spend my life therein ; and if any else shall be enabled thereunto, and conquer the same, I assure him thus much, he shall perform more than ever was done in Mexico by Cortes, or in Peru by Pizarro, — and whatsoever prince shall possess it, that prince shall be lord of more gold, and of a more beautiful empire, and of more cities and people, than either the King of Spain or the Great Turk." IJlFrom whom the Bermudas were called by an easy mistake the Summer Islands. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 309 at the appointed time ". They sailed without him, and it was not long before Preston, by giving chase, lost both his companions. Not to be idle while thus alone, he made for the little isle of Porto Santo, meaning to surprise it; but when his boats were manned with that intent, the islanders presented such a front on the shore, with barricados and trenches, ready to receive them, that he deemed it prudent to recall his men. Next morning, three or four hours before day, he landed sixty men in a place where no watch was kept, and so surprised the Portuguese by coming upon their backs, while they were still in their barricados. Being thus surprised, after some resistance of the invaders' muskets, " when they saw the pikes approach, and had tasted somewhat of their force," they took to the thickets : thence, too, they were dislodged, with little or no loss, and, flying toward their town, were driven from a house at which they attempted to make a stand ; an ensign, which one Captain Harvey had lost not long before, was recovered, and the town itself taken. There is a high hill nearly in the middle of the island, called Pico do Castello, * because on the summit there were some build- ings, which, by reason of their situation, were easily defended, and therefore served as a place of refuge in such emergencies as this. Hither the islanders had sent their wives and children, and their most valuable property in time ; and hence they sent repeatedly to redeem their town, "which was very fair and large " : yet, " in regard of their cruelty and treachery, which they used toward Captain Harvey and his people. Captain Preston would show them no favour, but utterly burnt their town to ashes, and sent his men to waste the rest of the villages of the island, preferring the honour and just revenge of his countrymen, before his own private gain and commodity. And so, with small pillage and great honour, he retired in safety, and all his small company with him, from the conquered island unto his ship." Captain Jones, meantime, with Captain Prowse in another vessel, who had sailed after their commander, fell in first with Sommers and the pinnace, then with Preston ; and, making for the West Indies, they there consorted with three ships from Southampton. They mustered their force, carried off a few Spaniards and negroes their slaves from a little * Cordeyro, Historia Insulana, lib. iii., c. 2, § 7. 310 ENGLISH SEAMEN island between Margarita and the main, and took at the same time some small quantity of pearls, and then proceeded to Cumana, hoping to surprise that place ; but two Middle- burgh fly-boats, which were trading there, secretly advertised the country of their coming ; and, when they would have landed, the Spaniards told them no resistance would be attempted ; all their goods had been removed to the mountains, and they were willing to give a reasonable ransom for the town, and any victuals that might be wanted: so Captain Preston came to terms with them, received their ransom, and departed without landing. This, however, proved but a short respite for the inhabitants ; for it appears that Raleigh * soon afterwards set fire to the town, upon their refusal to ransom it a second time. Sailing from Cumana, Preston landed at Guaycamacuto, half a league from Guayra. There was then no settlement at Guayra ; and Guaycacuto, where there was an Indian village and a small fort, was the port of Caraccas. That city had been founded, about thirty years before, by Diego de Losada, who, thinking to perpetuate the memory of his own name and that of the governor of the province, Don Pedro Ponce de Leon, combined them with that of the district which had been denominated after the most powerful of its tribe, and called it the city of Santiago de Leon de Caraccas. Losada built an ermida to St. Sebastian, whom he chose as a patron against the poisoned arrows of the Indians. About seven years afterwards, during a plague of locusts, St. Maurice was chosen advocate against these destroyers, and a church, accordingly, was built in his honour ; and in 1580, when the small-pox and measles had carried off half the Indians of the province, St. Paul the Hermit was called on, and the cathedral dedicated to him, as their de- liverer on that occasion. The site was well chosen ; and the difficulty of the approach might have secured the city against any less enterprising enemies. ■{■ Preston, who had landed without opposition, found nothing in the fort but a little meal, and some barrels of wine ; which, " by reason of some disorder amongst the company over- charging themselves with it, he caused for the most part to be spilt ". X The commander of the place was met with * Camden, 500. f Oviedo y Banos, lib. v., c. 7. X Pedro Simon and Oviedo y Banos state the number which landed at 500, which must be more than five or six such ships could have afforded, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 311 asleep in the woods by some of the English ; and, being brought before Preston, he was examined touching the state of the city. He declared, in reply, says one of the adventurers, " that they had news of our coming a month before ; and that, if we did go the common beaten way, it was never possible for us to pass, for that they had made in the midst of the way between this fort and the said city, an exceeding strong barricado on the top of a very high hill, the passage not being above twenty-five or thirty feet in breadth, and on each side marvellous steep upright, and the woods so thick, that no man could pass for his life. Our general demanded of him if there were not any other way ; who answered, there is another, marvellous bad and very ill to travel, which the Indians do commonly use ; but he thought that the Spaniards had stopped the same by cutting down of great trees and other things ; as, indeed, they had. The Spaniard was a very weak and sickly man, not able to travel ; so our general sent him aboard his ship, and there kept him." * In some caravel. The latter (and later) author places this expedition under the command of aquel celehre corsario Francisco Draque, a quien hicieron tan memorable en el Orbe sus navegciciones, como timido en la America sus hostilidades. (1. vii., c. lo). Pedro Simon has not led him into this error ; not know- ing the name of the general, he calls him simply an English corsair. Oviedo, no doubt, follows what had become the traditionary story at Caraccas, where it seems to have been thought that so daring an enter- prise could not have been conceived and executed by any less celebrated adventurer. * The Spanish account is, that the pirate (as they call him) found in this Indian settlement a Spaniard, by name Villalpando, who, being an invalid, either could not, or would not, withdraw with the Indians ; that they threatened him with death unless he would truly answer all their questions concerning the way to the city, and the opposition which they were likely to meet with ; that they put a rope round his neck to enforce the threat; and that then, either under the fear of death, or induced by his own evil will, he informed them of a secret way by which they might surprise the place ; and led them by a hidden path, or, rather, an indistinct track [una verada occulta, b por mejor decir, una trocha mal furmada), which ascended from the village of Guaycamacuto to the summit of the mountain ridge, and from thence descended through the woods to the Valle de San Francisco, in which the city stands ; a way so rugged and difficult, that it seemed impossible for human feet to pass it. Here, how- ever, he guided them ; and when the pirate came in sight of the city, to show his indignation at the treason which Villalpando had committed against his country, he hung him upon a tree, and left him there, whereby the world may know that there are elder trees in the woods for the condign punishment of Iscariotism. This is Oviedo's story, which differs only from Pedro Simon's in not saying that the English, after hanging their 312 ENGLISH SEAMEN which they had taken at Cumana, there was a Spaniard who had travelled this way ; and he ottered to be their guide if they would set him at liberty afterwards. This was granted, and in the afternoon they set forth, and marched, says Robert Davis, " until it was night, over such high mountains as we never saw the like, and such a way as one man * could scarce pass alone. Our general being in the fore ward, at length came whereas a river descended down over the mountains, and there we lodged all that night. Here we found the Spanish governor's confession to be true ; for they had barri- cadoed the way in divers places with trees and other things, in such sort, that we were driven to cut our way through the woods by carpenters, which we carried with us for that purpose. The next day, early in the morning, we set forward to recover the tops of the mountains ; but, God knoweth, they were so extreme high and so steep upright, that many of our soldiers fainted by the way ; and when the officers came unto them, and first entreated them to go, they answered they guide, threw his body over a precipice, saying, he who had sold his country deserved that recompense, that the proverb might be fulfilled which says, La maldad aplaze, pero no quien la haze (Oviedo y Banos, lib. vii., c. lo. Pedro Simon, lib. vii., c. 9, § 2). Robert Davis's relation is evidently the true one. The Spaniards knew that Villalpando had fallen into the hands of the English : they supposed him to have been their guide ; and, not knowing what had become of him when he was carried away prisoner, devised, as a pious fraud, this story of his death. This, indeed, is put out of doubt by an incidental mention of this person in Raleigh's narration. Speaking of an expedition into Guiana by the governor Diego Fernandez de Serpa (whom he erroneously calls Pedro), he says, " Captain Preston, on taking Santiago de Leon (which was by him and his companions very resolutely performed, being a great town and far within the land), held a gentleman prisoner who died in his ship, that was one of the company of Hernandez de Serpa, and saved among those that escaped, who witnessed what opinion is held by the Spaniards thereabouts of the great riches of Guiana and El Dorado, the city of Inga " (Hakluyt, 637). The only notice which I have found of Raleigh's expedition in the Spanish writers, is in these words : *• 1595. Un cosario Ingles, llamado Guateral, infesto este ano la costa de Tierra Firma.^^ It is in the Indice Chronologico Peruana y del Nuevo Reyno de Grenada, annexed to the rare work of P. Manuel Rodriguez, entitled El Maranon y Atnazonas. * *' Mas er apeadero de gatos que camino de hombres," Pedro Simon says. The difficulties of this " mountain pass between the Cumbra and the Silla, perhaps passing over the ridge of Galipano," have not been exaggerated. Humboldt says, " Those only who are acquainted with the situation can be sensible how difficult and daring this enterprise was " (vol. v., 289, note). SIR WALTER RALEIGH 313 could go no farther : then they thought to make them go by compulsion, but all was in vain ; they would go a little, and then lie down, and bid them kill them if they would, for they could not, nor would not, go any farther ; whereby they were enforced to depart, and to leave them there lying on the ground. At length, with much ado, we got to the top of the mountains about noon : there we made a stand till all the company was come up, and would have stayed longer to have refreshed our men ; but the fog and rain fell so fast, that we durst not stay. So we made haste to descend towards the town out of the fog and rain, because that in these high mountains, by report of the Spaniards themselves, it doth almost continually rain. As soon as we were descended down near half the way to the town, the rain ceased ; and, going a little farther on the top of a hill, we saw the town not far distant from us. Here we all cleared our muskets ; and, when our colours came in sight, we discharged a second volley of shot, to the great discouragement of the enemy. Thus we marched on a round pace. The enemy was in readiness, a little without the town, to encounter us on horseback. Being now fully descended from the mountains, we came into a fair plain champion field, without either hedge, bush, or ditch, saving certain trenches which the water had made as it descendeth from the mountains. Here we set ourselves in a readiness, supposing the enemy would have encountered us ; but, having pitched our main battle, and marching forward a good round pace. Captain Beling and Captain Roberts took each of them some loose shot, and marched in all haste toward the enemy (before the main battle, wherein was our general with Captain Sommers), and came to skirmish with them ; but it was soon ended, for the enemy fled. One Spaniard was slain in this skirmish, and not any one of our companies touched either with piece or arrow, God be thanked ! " The Spaniards, in their relation, admit that only one of their countrymen fell ; but they say that the whole force of the city, under the two alcaldes ordinarios, had gone to occupy the road from the port, the only one by which they supposed an enemy would attempt to approach. The other inhabitants fled with their movable property as soon as the English came in sight. There was, however, a certain Alonso Andres de Ledesma, who, though advanced in years, could not brook the thought of turning his back upon the enemy ; and there- 314 ENGLISH SEAMEN fore mounted his horse, took lance and target, and rode for- ward singly to defy them. The English commander, they say, was so pleased with this gallantry, that he ordered the soldiers not to slay him ; but, as Andres, by repeated thrusts of his lance, made them feel that he was making no idle bravado, they fired upon him in self-defence, though it grieved them to kill so brave a man : and, as a mark of respect, they carried his body into the city, and there buried him with all the honours of war.* "We soon marched into the town," says Davis, " and had it without any more resistance ; but there we found not the wealth that we expected, for they had conveyed all into the mountains, except such goods as they could not easily carry, as wine, and iron, and such things." The alcaldes, as soon as they heard that the place was in pos- session of the enemy, hastened back with the intention of giving them battle ; but, finding that they had fortified the church and the Casas Reales, they wisely agreed that it would be rash to attempt an attack in which it was impos- sible for them to succeed : so they contented themselves with keeping the country against them, and waylaying their forag- ing parties. Thus the invaders remained " without any great disturbance, saving sometimes, by night, they would come on horseback into our corps du guard, and, finding us vigilant and ready for them, would depart again. After two or three days, a Spaniard presented himself to confer with the general, and asked what he meant to do with the town. Preston answered, he meant to remain there, and keep it ; or, if he did depart, to burn it. Disregarding, as well he might, the impracticable resolution, the Spaniard replied to the threat, and asked what ransom he required for it ; 30,000 ducats were demanded : whereunto he replied, that it was very much. Among other things, Preston inquired why they had not walled the city, ' being so fair as it was ? ' The Spaniard replied, he thought it to be stronger walled than any city in the world ; meaning, by those huge and high mountains which the enemy must pass over before he can approach it. Thus with many fair speeches he took his leave, but first requested a token that he might show to the governor, in proof of his having spoken with the general ; whereupon a piece of twelvepence was given him, and he promised to re- *Oviedo, lib. v., c. 7. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 315 turn with an answer the next day. He came accordingly, and dined with the general in the governor's house that was. The dinner ended, with the best entertainment that could be given him, they commenced again about the ransom. The original demand of 30,000 ducats was repeated. The Spaniard first proffered 2000, then 3000, last of all, 4000, and more he would not give. The general, counting this a small sum of money, did utterly refuse it ; and told him that, if he came not again before the next day with the whole ransom which he demanded, he would set all on fire." * Preston, however, waited till the second day, and then sent parties to burn the villages round about the town : they did this without opposition, and brought back some Indian prisoners, from one of whom they learned that aid had been sent for from the other towns in that province, and was ex- pected in the course of the day. Davis says, ''When we understood this, we grew into some distrust of the Spaniard's treachery, and thought upon the messenger, how he had used long delays with us ; whereupon we were commanded presently, every man, to make ready to depart and to fire the city, which forthwith was done. And, after we had seen it all on fire and burnt to ashes,f we took our leave and marched away, not that way we came, but by the great beaten way. And when we had marched half the way to the water side, we came unto that strong barricado which they had made, and there lay all that night. It was of such force, that 100 men in it, well furnished, would have kept back from passing 1 00,000 : first, by reason of the huge and high mountains ; next, the steepness of them on both sides ; last of all, in re- gard of the fine contriving of it with the large trenches and other munitions." Next day they burned the fort, and the dwellings at Guaycamacuto, then sailed for Coro, where they landed, and, having forced a barricado, and won the town without any great loss of men, " found nothing in it at all," everything that was worth removing having been carried away in time. So they burned the place ; and, having infested the coast for some time longer, with little injury to the Spaniards, • Hakluyt, 581. t The adventurers gave themselves credit for more mischief than they actually did. Derriho y quemo algunas casus ; dexando la ciudad al Jin como la que escapava dc enemigos da la santa fe catholica (Pedro Simon, P- 595)- 316 ENGLISH SEAMEN and less profit to themselves, and losing about eighty men by sickness, the Southampton ships parted company with them ; " Captain Jones was sent to discover some other secret matter, in which discovery that valiant gentleman ended his life " ; and the fleet was then reduced to the two ships of the general and Sommers, with a small pinnace. This was their force, when, off the isle of Cuba, they met with " the honourable knight Sir Walter Raleigh, returning from his painful and happy discovery of Guiana, and his surprise of the isle of Trinidad ".* Raleigh was not admitted at court on his return ; neither was he welcomed with any popular applause, for he had brought home no booty ; and his account of the riches of the land into which he had led the way was received with sus- picion. He published it under this boastful title ; " The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spaniards f call El Dorado), and the Provinces of Eraeria, Aromaia, Amapaia, and other Countries, with the Rivers ad- joining. Performed by Sir Walter Raleigh." The epistle dedicatory held out great promises, but such as required more credit than they either found or deserved ; and the acknow- ledgment that he had made a losing voyage tended to abate that spirit of cupidity and enterprise which he wished to excite. "Of that little remain I had," said he, "I have wasted, in eflect, all herein. I have undergone many con- structions ; I have been accompanied with many sorrows ; with labour, hunger, heat, sickness, and peril. If what I have done receive the gracious construction of a painful pilgrimage, and purchase the least remission, I shall think all too little, and that there were wanting to the rest many miseries. But if both the times past, the present, and what may be in the future, do all, by one grain of gall, continue in eternal distaste, I do not then know whether I should bewail myself either for my too much travail and expense, or con- demn myself for doing less than that which can deserve nothing. From myself I have deserved no thanks, for I * Hakluyt, 582. t Milton, no doubt, had this in his mind when he wrote of "Yet unspoil'd Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons gall El Dorado ", SIR WALTER RALEIGH 317 have returned a beggar, and withered ; but that I might have bettered my poor estate, it shall appear by the following dis- course, if I had not, only, respected Her Majesty's future honour and riches. It became not the former fortune in which I once lived to go journeys of picory ; it had sorted ill with the offices of honour, 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 ordinary prizes." Speaking then of " that mighty, rich, and beautiful empire of Guiana," he said, " all the most of the kings of the borders are already become Her Majesty's vassals, and seem to desire nothing more than Her Majesty's protection, and the return of the English nation. It hath another ground and assurance of riches and glory than the voyages of the West Indies, an easier way to invade the best parts thereof than by the common course. The King of Spain is not so impoverished by taking three or four port towns in America as we suppose ; neither are the riches of Peru or Nueva Espana so left by the sea-side as it can be easily washed away with a great flood, or spring tide, or left dry upon the sands on a low ebb. The port towns are few and poor in respect of the rest within the land, and are of little defence, and are only rich when the fleets are to receive the treasure for Spain ; and we might think the Spaniards very simple, having so many horses and slaves, if they could not, upon two days' warning, carry all the gold they have into the land, and far enough from the reach of our footmen, especially the Indies being (as they are for the most part) so mountainous, so full of woods, rivers, and marshes. But I hope it shall appear that there is a way found to answer every man's longing ; a better Indies for Her Majesty than the King of Spain hath any ; which, if it shall please Her Highness to undertake, I shall most willingly end the rest of my days in following the same. If it be left to the spoil and sackage of common persons, if the love and service of so many nations be despised, so great riches and so mighty an empire refused, I hope Her Majesty will yet take my humble desire and my labours therein in gracious part, which, if it had not been in respect of Her Highness' future honours and riches, could have laid hands on and ransomed many of the kings and caciqui of the country, and have had a reasonable proportion of gold for their redemption : but I have chosen rather to bear the burden of poverty than re- 318 ENGLISH SEAMEN proach, and rather to endure a second travel, and the chances thereof, than to have defaced an enterprise of so great assurance, until I knew whether it pleased God to put a disposition in her princely and royal heart either to follow or foreslow the same." * This was followed by an address to the reader, wherein, " because there had been divers opinions conceived of the gold ore brought from Guiana, and for that an alderman of London and an officer of Her Majesty's mint had given out that the same was of no price," Raleigh thought good " to give answer as well to the said malicious slander as to other objections". He admitted that some of his people, trusting more to their own sense than to his opinion, had brought home some specimens of marcasite, mistaking it for gold ; and that others had brought what the Spaniards call the mother, or the scum of gold, " every one taking the fairest for the best. For mine own part," said he, " I did not countermand any man's desire or opinion ; and I could have afforded them little, if I should have denied them the pleasure of their fancies therein." Some small quantity of ore, however, he affirmed he had got out with daggers and with axes from the white stones, of which he saw hills and rocks in every part of Guiana, and in which gold is engendered ; and this having been assayed in London, was found of great value. " But because there came ill with the good," said he, "and belike the said alderman was not presented with the best, it hath pleased him therefore to scandal all the rest, and to deface the enterprise as much as in him lieth. It hath also been concluded by divers, that if there had been any such ore in Guiana, and the same dis- covered, that I would have brought home a greater quantity thereof. First, I was not bound to satisfy any man of the quantity, but such only as adventured, if any store had been returned thereof : but it is very true that, had all their moun- tains been of massy gold, it was impossible for us to have made any longer stay to have wrought the same ; and whosoever hath seen with what strength of stone the best gold ore is en- vironed, he will not think it easy to be had out in heaps, and especially by us, who had neither men, instruments, nor time to perform the same. Others have devised that the same ore was had from Barbary, and that we carried it with us into * Hakluyt, 627-629. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 319 Guiana. Surely, the singularity of that device I do not well comprehend. For mine own part, I am not so much in love with these long voyages as to devise, thereby to cozen myself, to lie hard, to fare worse, to be subjected to perils, to diseases, to ill savours, to be parched and withered, and withal to sus- tain the care and labour of such an enterprise, except the same had more comfort than the searching of marcasite in Guiana, or buying of gold ore in Barbary. But I hope the better sort will judge me by themselves, and that the way of deceit is not the way of honour or good opinion. I have herein consumed much time and many crowns ; and I had no other respect nor desire than to serve Her Majesty and my country thereby." He then spoke of the great expenditure of the Spanish king, the great losses which he had sustained ; *' and yet notwith- standing he beginneth again, like a storm, to threaten ship- wreck to us all. We shall find," said Raleigh, " that these abilities rise not from the trade of sacks and Seville oranges, nor from aught else that either Spain, Portugal, or any of his other provinces, produce : it is his Indian gold * that en- dangereth and disturbeth all the nations of Europe : it pur- chases intelligence, creepeth into counsels, and setteth bound loyalty at liberty in the greatest monarchies of Europe. If the Spanish king can keep us from foreign enterprises, and from the impeachment of his trades, either by offer of invasion, or by besieging us in Britain, Ireland, or elsewhere, he hath then brought the work of our peril in great forwardness. Those princes which abound in treasure have great advantages over the rest, if they once constrain them to a defensive war, where they are driven once a year, or oftener, to cast lots for their own garments ; and from such shall all trades and inter- course be taken away, to the general loss and impoverishment of the kingdom and commonweal so reduced. Besides, when our men are constrained to fight, it hath not the like hope as when they are prest and encouraged by the 'desire of spoil and riches. Farther, it is to be doubted how those that, in time of victory, seem to affect their neighbour nations, will remain after the first view of misfortune or ill success. To trust also * Milton seems to have remembered Raleigh's opinion here, when, in his Treatise of Reformation in England, he called the King of Spain " that sad intelligencing tyrant, that mischiefs the world with his mines of Ophir, and lies thirsting to revenge his naval ruins that have larded our seas ". 320 ENGLISH SEAMEN to the doubtfulness of a battle, is but a fearful and uncertain adventure, seeing therein fortune is as likely to prevail as virtue. It shall not be necessary to allege all that might be said, and, therefore, I will thus conclude ; that whatsoever kingdom shall be enforced to defend itself may be compared to a body dangerously diseased, which for a season may be preserved with vulgar medicines, but in a short time, and by little and little, the same must needs fall to the ground, and be dissolved. I have therefore laboured all my life, both ac- cording to my small power and persuasion, to advance all those attempts that might either promise return of profit to our- selves, or, at least, be a let and impeachment to the quiet course and plentiful trades of the Spaniard, who, in my weak judgment, by such a war were as easily endangered and brought from his powerfulness as any prince of Europe, if it be considered from how many kingdoms and nations his revenues are gathered, and those so weak in their own beings, and so far severed from mutual succour. But because such a preparation and resolution is not to be hoped for in haste, and that the time which our enemies embrace cannot be had again to advantage, I will hope that these provinces, and that empire now by me discovered, shall suffice to enable Her Majesty and the whole kingdom, with no less quantities of treasure than the King of Spain hath in all the Indies, East and West, which he possesseth ; which, if the same be considered and followed ere the Spaniards enforce the same, and if Her Majesty will undertake it, I will be contented to lose Her Highness' favour and good opinion for ever, and my life withal, if the same be not found rather to exceed than to equal whatsoever is in this discourse promised or declared." He concluded this prefatory vindication by expressing a hope, "that the perilous and chargeable labours and endeavours of such as thereby seek the profit and honour of Her Majesty and the English nation, shall, by men of quality and virtue, receive such construction and good acceptance as themselves would look to be rewarded withal in the like ".* The favourable acceptance which Raleigh asked for his relation, it was far from finding : an elegant book, Camden f calls it, " wherein he most accurately describeth the countries, as if he had been born and bred there; and relateth many * Hakluyt, 629-631. f P. 500. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 321 things of the riches of Guiana, which he concludes from the resplendent raarcasites there found, from the Spanish writings, and upon the credit of the barbarians, or savages, whom yet he understood not, and his own credulous hope. Some things also he reporteth, which seem fabulous — of the Amazons, anid of a nation which, by reason of the height of their shoulders, have their face on their breast ; a thing which the poets and fer travellers have nowhere found." Concerning the Amazons and the headless tribe Raleigh, however, related faithfully what he heard in the country, and what is probably believed there at this day. In his account of El Dorado, also, he repeated the fables which were found in Spanish histories, and which he believed as entirely as the Spaniards themselves. This was the weakness of a strong mind, the credulity of — if he be not belied — an incredulous one. But, though on this point he must be acquitted of any intention to deceive, there are parts of the narrative which are not consistent with good faith. Camden has glanced at the impossibility of his obtain- ing from the Indians, through an Indian interpreter, such full information as he pretended to have received from them con- cerning the rich and beautiful empire, and the great and golden city. Moreover, that information was in every point absolutely false, and, if it had really been given by these Indians, must have been intentionally so, as relating, not to traditions and reports, but to matters of fact in which they had themselves been concerned. But they were friends to the Eng- lish, as hoping to be by them protected against the Spaniards ; and, though they might hold out the lure of gold to bring them back, would not have wilfully deceived them with such tales. When they told the Spaniards that the rich country of the Oma- guas, or of Manoa, lay beyond them, it was for the sake of ridding themselves of such visitants, and sending them on to their de- struction. But Raleigh could have held no such conference with them through his interpreter as the conquestadores were able to do, either themselves, after long residence in the Indies, or through the natives whom they had attached to their service. The questions which he put them concerning the country and the course of the rivers were such as they could easily compre- hend, and intelligibly reply to ; and in this respect the relation contains proofs of diligent inquiry and sagacious * observation. •"Raleigh went scarcely the distance of sixty leagues along the Orinoco ; but he names the upper tributary streams according to the 21 i S22 ENGLISH SEAMEN But in holding out inducements to attempt the conquest of Guiana, Raleigh spared neither exaggeration nor flattery ; and showed himself as little scrupulous concerning the end at which he aimed, and the means which he would have em- ployed, as those Spaniards in whose steps he would have trodden. " Because I have not myself seen the cities of Inga/' said he, "I cannot avow on my credit what I have heard, although it be very likely that the Emperor Inga hath built and erected as magnificent palaces in Guiana as his ancestors did in Peru, which were for their riches and rare- ness most marvellous, and exceeding all in Europe, and, I think, of the world, China excepted ; which also the Spaniards (which I had) assured me to be true ; as also the nations of the borderers, who, being but savages to those of the inland, do cause much treasure to be buried with them. For I was vague notions he had collected. Notwithstanding his exaggeration, so little worthy of a statesman, his narrative contains important materials for the history or geography. The Orinoco, above the confluence of the Apure, was at that period as little known to Europeans, as, in our times, the course of the Niger below Sego. It seems to me difficult to doubt of the extreme credulity of the chief of the expedition and of his lieutenants. Raleigh adapted everything to the hypotheses he had previously formed. He was certainly deceived himself; but when he sought to influence the imagination of Queen Elizabeth, and execute the projects of his own ambitious policy, he neglected none of the artifices of flattery " (Humboldt, v., 833-835). Humboldt (832) is surprised that Raleigh scarcely mentions the settle- ment which had been made by Berrio under the name of St. Thome. He merely says, " Those Spaniards which fled from Trinidad, and also those that remained with Carapana in Emeria (now the mission of the Capuchins of Carony), were joined in some village upon the Orinoco ". To me it seems plain, by the words which Raleigh uses, that he had not heard of St. Thome ; a place which afterwards proved so fatal to him. It is very remarkable that neither Pedro Simon, nor Oviedo y Banos, though they both relate Preston's capture of Caraccas, make the slightest mention of Raleigh's expedition. His entering the Orinoco might easily be unknown to them ; but the capture of Berrio should seem a matter of too much importance either to remain unknown or unmentioned. It is nowhere said how Raleigh disposed of his prisoner, — and we shall pre- sently find him in his government. From a careful perusal of Pedro Simon, I am led to infer that the governor Antoneo de Berrio was not, and could not have been, in the isle of Trinidad when Raleigh set forth to the newly founded city of St. Joseph ; that the island was at that time in possession of a party opposed to Berrio ; and that Raleigh, having captured the person who was in command there, supposed he had got the lawful governor in his hands ; a mistake which the prisoner might be willing enough to encourage. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 323 informed of one of the caciques of the Valley of Amariocapana, which had buried with him, a little before our arrival, a chair of gold most curiously wrought, which was made either in Macuraguaray adjoining, or in Manoa : but if we should have grieved them in their religion at the first, before they had been taught better, and had digged up their graves, we had lost them all ; and, therefore, I held my first resolution, that Her Majesty should either accept or refuse the enterprise, ere anything should be done that might in any sort hinder the same. And if Peru had so many heaps of gold, whereof those Ingas were princes, and that they delighted so much therein, no doubt but this which now liveth and reigneth in Manoa hath the same honour, and, I am assured, hath more abund- ance of gold within his territory than all Peru and the West Indies.* " For the rest which myself have seen, I will promise these things that follow, which I know to be true. Those that are desirous to discover and to see many nations, may be satisfied within this river, which bringeth forth so many arms and branches, leading to several countries and provinces, above 2000 miles east and west, and 800 miles south and north, and of these the most either rich in gold or in other merchan- dises. 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. Those commanders and chieftains that shoot at honour and abundance, shall find there more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasures, than either Cortes found in Mexico, or Pizarro in Peru ; and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so far extended beams of the Spanish nation. There is no country which yieldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, either for those common delights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, or the rest, than Guiana doth : it hath so many plains, clear rivers, abundance of pheasants, partridges, quailes, railes, cranes, herons, and all other fowl ; deer of all sorts, porks, hares, lions, tigers, leopards, and divers other sorts of beasts, either for chase or food. It hath a kind of beast called cama, or anta, as big as an English beef, and in great plenty. I will conclude that, * Hakluyt, 66o. 324 ENGLISH SEAMEN both for health, good air, pleasure,* and riches, I am resolved it cannot be equalled by any region either in the east or west. Moreover, the country is so healthful, as of an hundred persons and more (which lay without shift, more sluttishly, and were every day almost melted with heat in rowing and marching, and suddenly wet again with great showers, and did eat of all sorts of corrupt fruits, and made meals of fresh fish without seasoning, of tortugas, of lagartos, or crocodiles, and of all sorts, good and bad, without order or measure, and besides lodged in the open air every night), we lost not any one, nor had one ill-disposed to my knowledge ; nor found any calentura, or other of those pestilent diseases which dwell in all hot regions, and so near the equinoctial line.j* " Where there is store of gold," said Raleigh, " it is, in effect, needless to remember other commodities for trade ; but it hath, towards the south part of the river, great quantities of Brazil wood, and divers berries that dye a most perfect crimson and carnation ; and for painting, all France, Italy, or the East Indies, yield none such ; for the more the skin is washed, the fairer the colour appeareth, and with which even those brown and tawny women spot themselves, and colour their cheeks. All places yield abundance of cotton, of silk, of balsamum, and of those kinds most excel- lent, and never known in Europe, of all sorts of gums, of Indian pepper ; and what else the countries may afford within the land, we know not, neither had we time to abide the trial and search. The soil, besides, is so excellent, and so full of rivers, as it will carry sugar, ginger, and all those other com- modities which the West Indies have." The navigation, he said, was short : it might be performed, with an ordinary wind, in six weeks, and in the like time back, and " by the way neither lee-shore, enemies' coast, rocks, nor sands ; all which, in the voyages to the West Indies, and all other places, *The pleasures of this country are described by Colonel Hippisley in his narrative of the expedition to the Orinoco by the English adventurers in aid of Bolivar, 1817. " On the river," he says, " the hissing of the water-serpent (an immense snake), the howling of beasts, the splashing in the water from the alligators, and the uncommon noises of various sorts which incessantly assail the ears during the dark, and the bites of the mosquito, render sleep impossible. Even the smoke from fifty pipes of tobacco had no effect in clearing us from the hordes of mosquitoes which oppressed and overpowered us" (p. 225). t Hakluyt, 660. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 325 we are subject unto, as the channel of Bahama, coming from the West Indies cannot well be passed in the winter ; and when it is at the best, it is a perilous and a fearful place. The rest of the Indies, for calms and diseases very trouble- some ; and the sea about the Bermudas, a hellish sea for thunder, lightning, and storms. The time to leave England is best in July, and the summer in Guiana is from October to March ; and then the ships may depart thence in April, and so return again into England in June, so as they shall never be subject to winter weather, either coming, going, or staying there ; which, for my part, I take to be one of the greatest comforts and encouragements that can be thought on, having (as I have done) tasted in this voyage by the West Indies so many calms, so much heat, such outrageous gusts, foul weather, and contrary winds." * Having thus held out to private adventurers all the en- couragements that he could think of, regardless whether they were true or false, Raleigh represented to the Govern- ment the importance and the facility of the proposed conquest. " Guiana," he said, " is a country never sacked, turned, nor wrought ; the face of the earth hath not been torn, nor the virtue and salt of the soil spent by manurance ; the graves have not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor their images pulled down out of their temples ; it hath never been entered by any army of strength, and never conquered or possessed by any Christian prince. It is, besides, so defensible, that if two forts f be builded in one of the provinces which I have seen, its flood setteth in so near the bank, where the channel also lieth, that no ship can pass up but within a pike's length of the artillery, first of the one, and afterwards of the other ; which two forts will be a sufficient guard both to the empire of Inga, and to an hundred other several kingdoms, lying within the said river, even to the city of Quito in Peru. There is, therefore, great difference be- tween the easiness of the conquest of Guiana, and the defence of it, being conquered, and the West or East Indies. Guiana hath but one entrance by the sea (if it hath that) for any * Hakluyt, 660. t Humboldt (v., 715), says that Raleigh here writes judiciously, and with great knowledge of the locality. The political security of Caraccas and New Granada, he observes, is intimately connected with the defence of the mouths of the Orinoco. 326 ENGLISH SEAMEN vessels of burthen; so as whosoever shall first possess it, it shall be found unaccessible for any enemy, except he come in wherries, barges, or canoes, or else in flat-bottomed boats ; and if he do offer to enter it in that manjier, the woods are so thick 200 miles together upon the rivers of such entrance, as a mouse cannot sit in a boat unhit from the bank. By land it is more impossible to approach, for it hath the strongest situation of any region under the sun, and is so environed with impassable mountains on every side, as it is impossible to victual any company in the passage, which hath been well proved by the Spanish nation, who, since the con- quest of Peru, have never left five years free from attempting this empire, or discovering some way into it ; and yet, of three and twenty several gentlemen, knights, and noblemen, there was never any that knew which way to lead an army by land, or to conduct ships by sea, anything near the said country. Orellana, of whom the river of Amazons taketh name, was the first, and Don Antonio de Barrio, whom we displanted, the last ; and I doubt much whether he himself, or any of his, yet know the best way into the said empire. It ca^, therefore, hardly be regained, if any strength be formerly set down, but in one or two places, and but two or three crdmsters or galleys built and furnished upon the river within. The West Indies have many ports, watering-places, and landings ; and nearer than 300 miles to Guiana, no man can harbour a ship, except he know one only place, which is not learned in haste, and which I will undertake there is not any one of my companies that knoweth, whosoever hearkened most after it."* " The West Indies were first offered Her Majesty's grand- father by Columbus, a stranger, in whom there might be doubt of deceit ; and, besides, it was then thought incredible that there were such and so many lands and regions never written of before. This empire is made known to Her Majesty by her own vassal, and by him that oweth to her more duty than an ordinary subject ; so that it shall ill sort with the many graces and benefits which I have received to abuse Her Highness either with fables or imaginations. The country is already discovered, many nations won to Her Majesty's love and obedience, and those Spaniards which have latest and longest laboured about the conquest beaten out, disfeouraged, * Hakluyt, 66i. \ SIR WALTER RALEIGH 327 and disgraced, which among these nations were thought in- vincible. Her Majesty may in this enterprise employ all those soldiers and gentlemen that are younger brethren, and all captains and chieftains that want employment ; and the charge will be only the first setting out in victualling and arming them ; for, after the first or second year, I doubt not but to see in London a contractation house of more receipt for Guiana, than there is now in Seville for the West Indies. " And I am resolved, that if there were but a small army afoot in Guiana, marching towards Manoa, the chief city of Inga, he would yield to Her Majesty by composition, so many hundred thousand pounds yearly, as should both defy all enemies abroad, and defray all expenses at home ; and that he would, besides, pay a garrison of 3000 or 4000 soldiers, very royally, to defend him against other nations ; for he cannot but know how his predecessors, yea, how his own great- uncles, Guascar and Atabalipa, sons to Guainacapa, Emperor of Peru, were (while they contended for the empire) beaten out by the Spaniards ; and that, both of late years, and ever since the said conquest, the Spaniards have sought the passages and entry of his country ; and of their cruelties used to the borderers he cannot be ignorant. In which re- spects, no doubt but he will be brought to tribute with great gladness : if not, he hath neither shot nor iron weapon in all his empire, and, therefore, may easily be conquered. " And I farther remember that Berrio confessed to me and others (which I protest before the majesty of God to be true), that there was found among prophecies in Peru (at such time as the empire was reduced to the Spanish obedience), in their chiefest temples, amongst divers others, which foreshowed the loss of the said empire, that from Inglatierra those Ingas should be again in time to come restored, and relieved from the servitude of the said conquerors. And I hope, as we with these few hands have displanted the first garrison, and driven them out of the said country, so Her Majesty will give order for the rest, and either defend it, and hold it as tributary, or conquer and keep it as empress of the same. For whatsoever prince shall possess it shall be greatest ; and if the King of Spain enjoy it, he will become unresistable. Her Majesty hereby shall confirm and strengthen the opinions of all na- tions as touching her great and princely actions. And where the south border of Guiana reacheth to the dominion and S2S ENGLISH SEAMEN empire of the Amazons, whose women shall hereby hear the name of a virgin, which is not only able to defend her own territories and her neighbours, but also to invade and conquer so great empires, and so far removed. " To speak more at this time I fear would be but trouble- some : I trust in God, this, being true, will suffice, and that He which is King of all kings, and Lord of lords, will put it into her heart, which is lady of ladies to possess it. If not, I will judge those men worthy to be kings thereof that, by her grace and leave, will undertake it of themselves." * The narrative was far from obtaining general acceptance : perhaps the spirit of adventure had been damped at the time by the ill success of the last expedition under Drake and Hawkins ; perhaps the honest feelings of the English people were opposed to the projects which it disclosed. They who, to justify them in their hostilities against the Spaniards while the two countries were ostensibly at peace, had so often been told of the injustice and cruelty which had been committed in the conquest of the Indies, were not prepared for so direct an invitation to follow the example of Cortes and Pizarro. The good principles of the people were offended at this part of his appeal ; and their good sense refused to answer the large demand which was made upon their credulity. The circumstances under which the colonists in Virginia had been abandoned to their fate operated as a warning. From the reports which prevailed concerning him before he sailed on this adventure, j- it is evident, not only that he had many enemies, but that an unfavourable opinion of his character prevailed. In the judgment of his fellow-courtiers he was thought to have overacted | his part during his confinement in the Tower ; and, because he was not a straightforward man in matters of more consequence, his policy was supposed to be even more crooked than it was. At this time, however, he was not destitute of friends ; and for a second exploratory voyage to the Orinoco, "the lord treasurer ventured with him 500 pounds in money," and Cecil, "a new ship, bravely furnished". A letter of the time adds, "the very hull stands in 800 pounds ".§ It would be wronging Sir Walter Raleigh not to admit * Hakluyt, 662. fibid. tibid. % Sydney Papers, z. zn- SIR WALTER RALEIGH 329 that, though some parts of his narrative were fabulous and others false, he had, nevertheless, deluded himself concerning El Dorado, and had built upon that delusion a scheme of ambition as daring as any of the Spanish conquerors ever pursued to their own destruction, or that of the unhappy people against whom their enterprises were directed. Yet he was not now so possessed by this persuasion as to pursue it, when more immediate advantage seemed within his reach. He therefore embarked in the memorable expedition against Cadiz, while his friend Laurence Keymis sailed with two vessels on what is called the second voyage to Guiana. Keymis spent three and twenty days in surveying the coast to the eastward. Farther than Essequibo, in that direction, •^no Spaniard," said he, "ever travelled. In which respect, and that no sea-card that 1 have seen, at any time, doth in any sort near a truth describe this coast, I thought the liberty of imposing English names to certain places of note, of right to belong unto our labours ; the rather, because occasion thereby offereth itself gratefully to acknowledge the honour due unto them that have been, and, I hope, will still continue, favourers of this enterprise." He marked, therefore, a Port Howard, a Port Burleigh, and a Cape Cecil upon his chart ; and he attempted to change the name of the Orinoco. " Of the worthiness of this river," says he, "because I cannot say enough, I will speak nothing. We have presumed to call it by the name of Raleana, because yourself was the first of our nation that ever entered the same, and 1 think it nothing inferior to Amazons, which is best known by the name of Orellana, the first discoverer thereof." Time has not ratified any of these names, which it was thus attempted to impose. Keymis entered the river in his ship, finding so good a channel, that it was likely, he said, to second their hope in all that they could desire. He learnt there that old Topea- wari was dead, and the Indians of that coast all fled and dispersed. The two Englishmen who were left there had disappeared. Sparrow (the one) had been taken by the Spaniards, but with plenty of gold had ransomed his life, and was then living at Cumana ; the boy Godwyn Topiawari had carried with him to the mountains when he fled thither him- self; and there he had been eaten by a jaguar. Berrio was preparing for an expedition to Manoa ; and Carapana, whom Raleigh called an old fox, sent an old man, whom he trusted. 330 ENGLISH SEAMEN to assure Keymis that '' it repented him of his ambition ever to have sought for an increase of power by allying himself with the Spaniards ; for/' said he (so Keymis reported in his relation of this voyage) " the other year, when we fled into the mountains, and measured your doings by the Spaniards' in like case, we made no other account, but that your com- mander, being able as he was, would doubtless have perse- cuted us to the uttermost, as the only maintainers and supporters of your enemies ; and would at the least, if he could not reach us, take our towns, and make us ransom our wives and children. We found it far otherwise, and that none of your well-governed company durst offer any of us wrong or violence ; no, not by stealth, when unknown they might have done it. We then, believing it to be true that your grand captain reported of his princess, took that for a good proof of her royal commandment and wisdom, that had framed her subjects to such obedience, and of your happiness, that enjoyed the benefit thereof, that Carapana, weighing the good and friendly course of our proceedings, doth humbly crave of Her Majesty, for himself and his people, that, with the rest of the Indians, which wholly depend on her princely regard towards them, he also may enjoy her favourable pro- tection ; that he doeth this, not as a man left unto himself, and forsaken by the Spaniards, but as one that knoweth their injustice, hateth their cruelties, and taketh it for his best choice utterly to disclaim their friendship." * * Hakluyt, 676, 679, 680. " It may be pertinent " (says Keymis, addressing himself to Raleigh), "as surely it is a thing worth the noting, to consider how this precedent of your moderation and good order, which to us seemeth but a matter of small and ordinary respect, hath both alienated their hearts altogether from the Spaniard, and stirred up in them true love and admiration thereof. For as government is the only bond of common society, so to men lawless, that each one to another are omnes hoc jure molesti, quo fortes, — to men, I say, that live in daily tumults, fears, doubts, suspicions, barbarous cruelties, never sleeping secure, but always either drunk, or practising one another's death, — to such men as these be, who wanting discipline, justice, and good order to confirm them in a great and peaceable course of living, know not where to find it, the sense and sweetness thereof is as the dew of Hermon ; it is as the harmony of a well-tuned instrument ; to be brief, it carrieth in itself not only a due and worthy commendation, but is available, without stroke striking, to gain a kingdom " {Ibid., 680). We have yet to learn how surely that good order which is attainable by means of good police may be made available to save ours. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 331 Some geographical information was obtained by this voyage, and something also was added to the stock of American fables. Keymis was not only " certified of the headless men, and that their mouths on their breasts are exceeding wide," but he heard also " of a sort of people more monstrous ". What he heard of them, he says, " I omit to mention, because it is no matter of difficulty to get one of them ; and the report otherwise will appear fabulous ". In the margin of his rela- tion, however, it is stated that "they have eminent heads, like dogs, and live all the daytime in the sea ; and they speak the Caribs * language ". These Cynocephali, like the Acephali, were no new monsters in natural history, and they were common in romance ; but Keymis met with a new fable, which he repeated, not as believing it, but as possibly indi- cating another means of wealth. Among the enemies who were ready to fight against the Spaniards in this country, there were a people called Pariagotos, of whom the Indians ''held opinion that they were notable sorcerers, and invulner- able. In the mountain where they dwell, white stones are found, of such hardness, that by no art or means they can be pierced ; they imagine that these Pariagotos become in- vulnerable by eating these stones." The fable omitted, "happily they may prove good •]■ diamonds". The Indians with whom he conversed had "kept a precise fast one whole day, in honour of the great princess of the north, their patroness and defender ".| And, when he had stated to them as a reason why he had not come with a sufficient force to enter upon active operations, "that, if Her Majesty had sent a power of men, the Indians might, perhaps, imagine we came rather to invade than to defend them ; one of their chiefs replied that this course very well assorted with the report they had heard of her justice, rare graces, and virtues, the fame of whose power in being able to vanquish the Spaniards, and singular goodness in undertaking to succour and defend the afflicted Indians, was now so general, that the nations far and near were all agreed to join with us, and, by all means possible, to assist us in expelling and rooting out the Spaniards from all parts of the land ; but that we were deceived if we thought the country not large enough to re- ceive us, without molestation or intrusion upon the Indians, * Hakluyt, 677. f Ibid., 681. 5:/6trf., 577. S32 ENGLISH SEAMEN who wanted not choice of dwelling-places, if they forsook one to live in another, but stood in need of our presence at all times to aid them, and maintain their liberty, which to them is dearer than land or living".* That no motive might be wanting, Sir Walter's faithful mouthpiece urged the religious duty of prosecuting this dis- covery and conquest. "If we do but consider," said he, " how unhappily Berrio his affairs, with his assistants, have of late years, in our own knowledge, succeeded, who can say if the hand of the Almighty be not against them, and that He hath a work in this place, instead of papistry, to make the sincere light of His Gospel to shine on this people ; the effect- ing whereof shall be a royal crown of everlasting remembrance to all other blessings that from the beginning the Lord hath plentifully poured on our dread sovereign in an eminent and supreme degree of all perfection ? If the Castilians, pre- tending a religious care of planting Christianity in these parts, have in their doings preached nought else but avarice, rapine, blood, death, and destruction to those naked and sheep-like creatures of God, erecting statues and trophies of victory unto themselves in the slaughters of millions of innocents, doth not the cry of the poor succourless ascend unto the heavens ? Hath God forgotten to be gracious to the workmanship of His own hands ? Or shall not His judgments in a day of visita- tion, by the ministry of His chosen servant, come on these bloodthirsty butchers like rain into a fleece of wool ? Ali- quando manifesta, aliquando occulta, semper justa su?it Dei judicia." f "Myself," said the ardent adventurer, "and the remain of my few years, I have bequeathed wholly to Raleana ; and all my thoughts live only in that action : the prosecution thereof is in itself just, profitable, and necessary." J "The river of Raleana giveth open and free passage, any provision that the Spaniard can make to the contrary notwithstanding (for once yearly the lands near the river be all drowned), to convey men, horse, munition, and victual for any power of men that shall be sent thither. I do speak it on my soul's health, as the best testimony that I can in any cause yield to aver in truth, that, having now the second time been in this country, and, with the helps of time and leisure, well advised myself * Hakluyt, 674. f Ibid., 686. X ^^id., 687. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 333 upon all circumstances to be thought on, I can discern no sufficient impediment to the contrary, but that, with a com- petent number of men. Her Majesty may, to her and her successors, enjoy this rich and great empire, and, having once planted there, may for ever, by the favour of God, hold and keep it, contra Judceos et Gentes." "If the necessity of follow- ing this enterprise doth nothing urge us, because in some men better a mischief than an inconvenience, let the convenience thereof somewhat move us, in respect both of so many gentle- men, soldiers, and younger brethren, who, if for want of employment they do not die like cloyed cattle in rank ease- fulness, are enforced, for maintenance' sake, sometimes to take shameful and unlawful courses ; and in respect of so many handy craftsmen, having able bodies, that do live in cleanness of teeth and poverty. To sacrifice the children of Belial unto the common weal, is not to defile the land with blood, because the law of God doth not prohibit it, and the execution of justice requireth it to be so ; but yet, if the water-boughs that suck and feed on the juice and nourishment that the fruitful branches should live by, are to be cut down from the tree, and not regarded, lucky and prosperous be that right hand that shall plant and possess a soil where they may fructify, increase, and grow to good ; thrice honourable and blessed be the memory of so charitable a deed, from one generation to another ! " Then addressing Raleigh, " To conclude," he says, "your lordship hath paid for the discovery and search, both in your own person, and since by me. You have framed it and moulded it, ready for Her Majesty to set on her seal. If either envy * or ignorance, or other devices, * Keymis alludes to Raleigh's enemies in some Latin verses addressed to Harcot, which are prefixed to his relation. " Providus excubuit simili discrimine Joseph^ Sic fratres fratrem deseruire suum. Fama color atam designet si bona vestem, Vestis scissa malis sicfuit ilia modis." Chapman also, in what he entitles De Guiana Carmen Epicum, prefixed to the same account, inveighs against those who did not believe Raleigh's report of the " great and golden city," and ascribes their incredulity to envy. '•You then, that would be wise in wisdom's spite, Directing with discredit of direction. And hunt for honour, hunting him to death. With whom before you will inherit gold You will lose gold, for which you lose your souls ; 334 ENGLISH SEAMEN prostrate the rest, the good which shall grow to our enemies, and the loss which shall come to Her Majesty and this king- dom, will after a few years show itself. We have more people, more ships, and better means, and yet do nothing. In one word, the time serveth, the like occasion seldom happeneth in many ages ; the former repeated considerations do all jointly together importune us, now or never, to make ourselves rich,* our posterity happy, our princess every way stronger than our enemies, and to establish our country in a state flourishing and peaceable. Oh ! let not, then, such an indignity rest on us, as to deprave so notable an enterprise with false rumours and vain suppositions, to sleep on so serious a matter, and, renouncing the honour, strength, wealth, and sovereignty of so famous a conquest, to leave all unto the Spaniard." f A third voyage to Guiana was set forth by Raleigh in the same year ; but only a single pinnace was sent, and the sole object was to explore the rivers upon the coast. The relation held out no such golden hopes as were displayed in the two former; but samples were brought home of "fine cotton wool, which the trees yield great store of, and whereof the women make a fine thread, which will make excellent good fustians, or stockings " ; and it was said that the land " yielded divers other commodities, which in good time might be found out, to the benefit of our country, and profit of the You that chuse nought for right, but certainty, And fear that valour will get only blows, Placing your faith in incredulity ; Sit till you see a wonder, virtue rich : Till honour, having gold, rob gold of honour ; Till as men hate desert that getteth nought They loathe all getting that deserves not ought, And use you gold-made men as dregs of men ; And till your poisoned souls, like spiders lurking In sluttish chinks, in nests of cobwebs hide Your foggy bodies and your dunghill pride. O incredulity ! the wit of fools, That slovenly will spit on all things fair. The coward's castle, and the sluggard's cradle, How easy 'tis to be an infidel 1 " — Hakluyt, 66g, 670. * " Est ibi, vel nusquam, quod qucBrimus ; ergo petamus : Dat Deus hanc Canaan possidiamus. Amen." Thus Keymis concludes his verses, t Hakluyt, 686, 687. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 335 adventurei*s, who as yet, having ventured much, had gained little ".* It was well for them that they had ventured nothing but money ; and had not, like the Virginian colonists, been deluded to their own destruction. Raleigh has the merit of having been the first person to perceive that the great rivers afforded the best means of communicating with the richest parts of Spanish America ; and that, if such a country as his Manoa existed, it was by the rivers that it must be sought. But the time for com- mercial intercourse had not arrived, and his dreams of con- quest proved fatal to himself at last. They would have proved fatal to very many of his countrymen, if he could at this time have persuaded the Government or the people to enter into his projects. What the English escaped may be apprehended by what befell the Spaniards in the prosecution of this very enterprise at this very time. He had heard, during his expedition, that Berrio had de- spatched his camp-master to Spain to levy men, sending with him " divers images, as well of men as beasts, birds, and fishes, so curiously wrought in gold as he doubted not but to persuade the king to yield him some farther help ; especially for that this land hath never been sacked, and the mines never wrought". By the show of this gold, he thought also that others would be drawn to the love of the enterprise. ■[• This agent was more successful than Raleigh in obtaining belief, and the issue has been faithfully related. He was a Biscayan, Domingo de Vera by name, and had a wife and children in the city of Caraccas, when he went on this errand to Spain. Like Sir Walter, he is described as a man of great ability, and little scrupulous as to truth ; but he had in great perfection the dangerous talent of making others beheve the tales which he related, deceived himself,| no doubt, as to the existence of a golden empire, but deceiving others by the fables which he repeated concerning it. Having been favour- ably received by the ministers, he attracted notice by appear- ing always in a singular dress, which as he was of great stature, and rode always a great horse, drew all eyes, and made him generally known as the Indian of El Dorado, and * Hakluyt, 697. \ Ibid., 641. X Passion ordinaria de quantos pisan estas tierras de las Indias (Pedro Simon, 597). 336 ENGLISH SEAMEN the rich lands. Some trinkets* in gold he displayed, of Indian workmanship, and some emeralds which he had brought from the Nuevo Reyno, and he promised stores of both ; and, by the aid of influential persons, he obtained 70,000 ducats at Madrid, and 5000 afterwards at Seville; authority to raise any number of adventurers (though Berrio has asked only for 300 men), and five good ships to carry them out. Adventurers flocked to him in Toledo, La Mancha, and Estremadura. In Andalusia he obtained none : the people there had so much intercourse with the Indies, that they were not deceived by his representations. Everywhere else the expedition was beyond example popular. Twenty captains of infantry, who in that capacity had served in Italy and Flanders, joined it. Old soldiers, who were soliciting the reward of past services, thought themselves well rewarded if they could obtain commissions upon this discovery. Not those alone who had their fortunes to seek were deluded ; men of good birth left their entailed inheritance to engage in the conquest of El Dorado ; and fathers of families, who were respectably settled in the various branches of middle and lower life, gave up their offices or employments, sold their goods, esteeming everything as dirt in comparison with what they were to take possession of, and embarked with their wives and children. When men were wanted for the Indies, it used to be necessary to force them into the service ; but in this case, wherever Domingo de Vera or any of his officers went, solicitations and bribes were used by eager volunteers. A prebendary]- of Salamanca, who went out as superior of the clergy, left an income of 2000 dollars ; and among the preachers were some of great repute, who were in the sure path of preferment at home. The whole expedition consisted of more than 2000 persons. | They reached Trinidad after a prosperous voyage ; and, having anchored in Puerto de Espana, the camp-master landed, captured a party who were sent from St. Joseph's to reconnoitre the new-comers, and took possession of that city in the name of its lawful governor, Berrio. It was in Passion- * Unas chagualillas, cariculias y orejeras de oro. In Raleigh's relation, ten images of fine gold are specified, "so curiously wrought," that Berrio said he had not seen the like either in Italy, Spain, or the Low Countries (Pedro Simon, 639). t Racionero. X Pedro Simon, 597-599. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 337 week. The first days were passed by the adventurers in hutting themselves and landing their stores, the latter part of the week in the religious observances of the season. The sick recovered as soon as they were on shore ; but the women began already to apprehend the miseries which awaited them ; and the priest, who administered spiritual consolation, and endeavoured to comfort them, felt his own heart * fail when he saw the little children dabbling in the sea, not for pleasure, but to escape the intolerable heat of the land. Vera's first business was to send some of his ships to the port of Caraccas with much merchandise, many of the married people, and certain of his chosen friends, who were charged to dispose of the goods there, and, purchasing with the proceeds horses, cattle, and such commodities as would be most useful, proceed with them by land to the city of St. Thomas, which was Berrio's residence. As soon as Easter was past, he gave orders that the people should remove to the town. A few of the more favoured obtained canoes to convey their baggage, by a river which disembogued about a league from the port ; all others had to perform the march on foot : the distance was three leagues. They had neither beasts of burthen, nor Indians in their stead ; they were compelled, therefore, to load themselves with all that they could not at once make up their minds to lose, and to carry water also (the women for themselves and their children), or die for thirst upon the way. When all had arrived, a muster was made ; twenty banners were displayed, so rich and costly, says Pedro Simon, "that they would have been more suitable for nuptial or royal festivals, than for an expedition to such miserable lands". The little mischief which Raleigh had done had been easily repaired ; for, indeed, there was little that he could do : the place did not contain thirty families, and the strangers were to find shelter as they could. Rations of biscuit and salt meat, and, on Fridays, of pulse or rice, were served out to them. The priests and officers had an allowance of oil and vinegar also, of which and of wine good store had been brought out. But the camp-master diminished this consump- tion as soon as possible, by despatching detachments in canoes * Dezia con gran dolor, que sera dc tantos angelitos en tantas descomo- didades I Consolava con su buen espiritu y palahras las aflicciones de todos, y no ptidiendolas remediar con otra cosa, se octipava en llorar con tantos como lloravan, y a la ruyna que les amenazava (Pedro Simon, 603). 22 338 ENGLISH SEAMEN to St. Thomas.* Some flotillas effected their passage safely ; but one, which consisted of six canoes, met with bad weather in crossing the gulf, and only three succeeded in entering the river, after throwing their cargoes overboard. The others made the nearest shore, hoping to follow them at daylight. They were descried by the Caribs, who came upon them with great force, and slew them all, except a few women, whom they carried away, and one soldier, who, getting into a swamp, hid himself among the mangles, and escaped to relate the fate of his companions. -t* Pursuing their success, the Caribs prepared to fall upon the canoes which had entered the river, expecting to find them equally unprepared for resistance ; for, though they stood in fear of those Spaniards who were accustomed to Indian war- fare, they held all who were inexperienced in great contempt. By good fortune, there were three men on board whom Vera had arrested at St. Joseph's, and was sending in irons to Berrio, whose authority they had opposed. Their irons were taken off in this emergency ; and, when a few shots had been fired, the Caribs, seeing with whom they had to deal, made off. There were five Franciscans in this party, who, hearing that the scene of the massacre was not far distant, proposed to bury the slain ; and, when the proposition was rejected, as engaging them in much danger and useless labour, they set out alone to perform what they considered due to religion and to humanity. Example moved those whom persuasion had failed to move, and some five and twenty of the soldiers followed them. This duty having been performed, the canoes pursued their way to the city of St. Thomas. That city had been founded by Berrio a few years before, at the same time with that of St. Joseph in the isle of Trinidad, but hitherto with better fortune. There were now in it not less than 400 men, besides women and children, and six friars. Berrio, to prepare the way for the discovery and conquest of Manoa, sent out small parties of the new-comers, under experienced persons, that they might be seasoned to the difficulties which *A navigation of twenty-four or thirty days, or less, if the river favoured, en ocasiones de mejor rio, Pedro Simon says, pero siempre penosissima, por los inumerables ntosquitos que ay, de dia zancudos canta- dores, y de noche gegenes rodadores, y sobre todo gran riesgo de Caribes craelissimos, y vorazes di came humana (p. 604). t Pedro Simon, 600-605. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 339 they would have to undergo, and learn how to conduct them- selves in their intercourse with the Indians. They were to spread the news that the king had sent out many Spaniards, and a large supply of bills, axes, caps, hawk-bells, looking- glasses, combs, and such other articles of traffic as were in most request. These parties were instructed not to venture far, because of the little confidence that was placed in the Indians ; but, as far as they went, they saw no appearance of those riches which Raleigh had heard of, nor of that plenty which he had found. The people with whom they met had but a scanty sustenance for themselves ; and hammocks were a luxury which none but the chiefs possessed, and which they obtained from more industrious or less degraded tribes. They had, indeed, so little to offer or exchange for bills and hatchets (which they were most desirous to obtain), that they frequently bartered their children for them : others gave proof of willingness to improve their own condition, by hiring them- selves as boatmen in payment for such tools.* Berrio was not discouraged by the result of these journeys : like Raleigh, he was persuaded that the great and golden city stood on the banks of a great lake, from which the river Caroli issued, about twelve leagues east of the mouth whereof his town was placed.f A force of 300 men was now ordered upon the discovery. The command was given to Alvaro Jorge, a Portuguese, who was nearly seventy years of age, * Pedro Simon, 606, 607. t Humboldt, v., 698 (Eng. trans.). It is said here that there was an earlier town, called St. Thomas, opposite the island of Taxardo, at the confluence of the Carruy and the Orinoco ; and that it was destroyed by the Dutch under Adrian Janson, in 1579. The reference is to Laet, '•Novus Orbes" (lib. xvii., p. 660). But the date there is 1629, and the history of Adriaen Janszoon Pater's expedition is related under that year in J. de Laet's laerluck Verhael of the West Indian company. Keymis (Hakluyt, 678), speaks of a Rancheria, of some twenty or thirty houses, which the Spaniards had planted at a port of Topeawary's. " The high rocky island," he says, " that lieth in the midst of the river, against the mouth of Caroli, is their fort, or refuge, when they misdoubt safety in their town, or have notice of any practice against them." Possibly this may be the settlement of which Humboldt speaks as the fort of St. Thomd. I can find no mention of any earlier one than that which Berrio founded in 1591, or the following year. Keymis must have left the river a very short time before Domingo de Vera's unfortunate people entered it. Pedro Simon has erroneously dated Vera's expedition in 1595. 340 ENGLISH SEAMEN but who had passed many years in the Nuevo Reyno, had much experience in Indian warfare, and was trusted in all things by Berrio. Three Franciscans, and a lay brother of the same order, accompanied the expedition. This would have been deemed a considerable force against more formidable Indians than they expected to encounter. The tribes in this part of the country used long arrows, which were less destruc- tive than short ones, and they were not poisoned.* The old commander died a few days after they had begun their march ; and another Portuguese, Correa by name, was chosen to suc- ceed him, till Berrio's pleasure could be known. Having reached the Cerro de los Totumos, where the temperature was somewhat cooler, and the country more open and less difficult than that which they had passed, they hutted them- selves upon a sort of prairie, where the herbage was short, and halted there, apparently in the hope that rest might restore those who began to feel the effect of an unwholesome climate. The natives not only abstained from any acts of hostility, but supplied them with fruits, and with a sort of cassava, much coarser and less palatable than that which is made of mandioc.f This they did in sure knowledge that disease would soon subdue these new-come Spaniards to their hands. It was not long before ill diet, the climate, and the utter want of all needful remedies, produced a malignant fever, accompanied with ulcers, which carried off a third part of their number. One comfort, indeed, there was, of which the sick and the dying were not destitute : the friars contrived every day to perform mass in a place where all the sufferers could hear it ; and no person died without performing and receiving all the offices which the Romish Church has enjoined. This was their only comfort left. Correa himself sunk under * Pedro Simon, however, is certainly mistaken in saying that poison was not known in those countries ; for it is upon the Orinoco, and the rivers connected with it, that the most deadly poison is prepared. t Una manera del cazava de rayze peregrinas, tan tnalo y aspero, que el ordinario de yuca es mazapanes para con el, pues aun despues de mojado se estava tan aspero como de antes, que aun el agua no lo podia ablandar. (Pedro Simon, 608). Raleigh gives a very different account of the cassava which the Aruacas made for the Margarita market. He says, *' Nothing on the earth could have been more welcome to us, next unto gold, than the great store of very excellent bread which we found in these canoes ; for now our men cried, ' Let us go on, we care not how far ' " (Hakluyt, 646). SIR WALTER RALEIGH 341 the disease : he might possibly have escaped it, acclimated as he was, if^ being a strong and a compassionate man, he had not overtasked himself when food was to be sought from a distance, and carried heavy loads to spare those who were less equal to the labour. For now the crafty Indians no longer brought supplies, but left the weakened Spaniards to provide for themselves as they could ; and when Correa was dead, of whom, as a man accustomed to Indian war, they stood in fear, they collected their forces, and fell upon the Spaniards, who apprehended no danger, and were most of them incapable of making any defence. The plan appears to have been con- certed with a young cacique, who accompanied the Spaniards under the pretence of friendship, and, having adopted their dress, was called by them el Vestido ; and the women, whom the Indians brought with them to carry home the spoils of their enemies, bore their part with stones and stakes in the easy slaughter. Those who escaped the first attack fled in all speed, some without weapons, and some without strength to use them. The friars were the last to fly : with the soldiers to protect them, they brought off their portable altar, two crosses, and a crucifix. No attempt at resistance was made, except when a fugitive fell by the way ; the word was then passed for one of the fathers ; some soldiers stood with their muskets to protect him while he hastily confessed and absolved the poor wretch, whom his countrymen then commended to God, and left to the mercy of the Indians ! In some places the enemy set fire to the grass, a mode of destruction which seems to have been foreplanned,* and by which part of this miserable expedition perished. Not quite thirty, out of 300, reached St. Thomas. They owed their escape to the lay brother, who, when the sergeant of the party fell, laid down his cross, took up a partisan in its stead, and demeaned him- self like a good soldier. But of those who reached the town, about half died either of the diseases which they had contracted, or of destitution. A novenary was kept for the souls of those who had perished in the expedition ; and on the tenth day mass was performed in thanksgiving to Nuestra Seiiora de las * Keymis says, an old Indian showed him "how the Iwarewakeri had nourished grass in all places where there were passages, these three years ; and that it is at this present so high as some of the trees, which they mean to burn so soon as the Spaniards shall be within danger thereof" (Hakluyt, 68i). 342 ENGLISH SEAMEN Nieves, on the eve of whose holiday the retreat, in which so few had escaped, was effected.* That place was in a deplorable state, suffering at once from a contagious disease, and from a scarcity of provisions. To add to the distress, about 100 persons more had just arrived from Trinidad. The camp-master had despatched them, because he was no longer able to support them on the island, the stores which he had brought having been either consumed or spoiled ; and also because he feared lest some of them should fly to Margarita, Cumana, or Caraccas, and by that means complaints of the falsehood whereby they had been deluded would reach the king and the royal council. They, however, were still possessed with the golden dream which had enticed them from their native land ; and, when they embarked from Trinidad for the Orinoco, they repined at their own ill fortune in not having been in the earlier detach- ments, by whom they supposed the first spoils of El Dorado had by that time been shared. They arrived like skeletons at a city of death. Not only were provisions scarce, but the supply of salt which was brought thither from Chita, a place belonging to Berrio in the Nuevo Reyno, had altogether failed ; and without it health cannot be preserved. The shoes had all been consumed ; materials or ingenuity to substitute any- thing for them were wanting ; and the country was infested by that insect f (the chigua) which burrows in the feet ; and wounds of any kind in the feet or legs were there especially dangerous. Among those who had come from Spain to enter upon this land of promise there was a beata, the name given to a woman when she professes to be more holy than her neighbours. She had been a servant in the convent of the Descalzas in Madrid, and held an employment % there which secured her a respectable support : this she gave up to ac- company a married daughter and her husband on this unhappy * Hakluyt, 608-610. t In this respect, Pedro Simon says, those countries had been much improved by the large herds of cattle which the Spaniards had introduced, and by the cultivation of the land (612). The plague of the chigua was so great in Trinidad, that two forges, which Vera had brought out with him, were, according to this historian, chiefly employed in heating irons to cauterise the sores caused by this most noxious insect (613). X Una de aquellas que llaman mandaderas ; per set su ojicio llevar y traer recados en los negocios del convento (Pedro Simon, 613). SIR WALTER RALEIGH S4S adventure, still, however, wearing the Francisan habit ; and, as a person of great charity, she devoted herself to the service of the sick. From daybreak till nine in the forenoon, she, with an Indian woman who belonged to the governor, and with some of the priests, went among the sufferers to dress their sores and minister to them : after that hour, the stench arising from the sick and dead became unbearable. Early every morning Berrio was informed of the deaths which had taken place during the night ; and he went himself to superin- tend their interment ; twelve or fomi:een bodies being some- times deposited in one grave : for at this time many, whom the contagion spared, were dying of hunger. In addition to other evils, there was a plague of crickets at this time, who not only devoured everything that was made of leather, and clothing of every kind, but attacked the ears and lips and nostrils of the sick by night, when there were none to watch by them, and they were unable to raise their arms for protect- ing themselves.* Some of the women, and the heata among them, looking upon the governor as the first cause of their miseries, and thinking that as long as he lived there was no hope of their escaping from this fatal place, resolved to murder him, and provided themselves with knives for the purpose. They meant to execute their design by night ; for, if there had been any difficulty in obtaining access, the beata could at any hour have gained admittance, on the pretext of coming to ask for some- thing for the sick. Luckily for Berrio, she mentioned their intent to one of the friars, and, by his remonstrance, the con- spirators were induced to abandon it. Had they effected it, it is said they would have met with no punishment there, where so many persons would have concurred with them in opinion. One woman, who had been persuaded to sell her possessions in Spain, and embark with her family in this disastrous adventure, made her way to the governor when the officers and friars were with him, and, emptying upon the ground before him a bag which contained 150 doubloons, said to him, "Tyrant, if it be gold you seek in this miserable country, whither you have brought us to die, take what is left from the price they gave me for the lands and vineyards and houses which I sold, that I might come here ! " The strong * Pedro Simon, 610-613. SU ENGLISH SEAMEN feeling which appeared in Berrio's countenance was taken for anger by the bystanders, and they interposed to soothe him ; but the emotion was of a different kind, and he only replied, " I gave no orders to Domingo de Vera that he should bring more than 300 men ". It soon appeared that, as he had not brought these unhappy people thither, neither did he desire to detain them where he was without means of supporting them. Many, who had strength or resolution enough for the perilous attempt, trusted themselves to the river in such canoes as they could find, without boatmen or pilot, and endeavoured to make their way back to Trinidad ; some perishing by the hands of the Caribs, others by drowning, others, who escaped from the water, by hunger on the marshy shores which they reached. Vera soon died in Trinidad of a painful disease, undeceived, if not concerning El Dorado, at least of his schemes of ambition ; and Berrio did not long survive him."^ Such was the issue of this great attempt for the conquest of the golden empire : if no former attempt had terminated so miserably, it was because no women and children had em- barked in any other : all had failed alike ; and if Raleigh's representations had deluded his countrymen, no better fate could have befallen an English expedition. They might, probably, have been deluded if Raleigh had been a favourite with the people, or if his character had been above suspicion. His reputation was raised by the part which he bore in the taking of Cadiz, and still more by his conduct during the island voyage. He recovered also the queen's favour ; and, having obtained Cecil's confidence, was talked of as a member f of the council. On the rumour of a Spanish fleet, he was sent to Cornwall to provide for the defence of that part of the coast ; | and when the matters and miseries of Ireland busied the council, and affairs there were growing to desperate terms, Raleigh was among the persons consulted, * Pedro Simon (613-615), says that Domingo de Vera died con mayores dolores que paciencia : such, he says, after particularising the fate of various individuals, fueron los fines que tuvo esta tan eampanuda Jor- nada del Dorado, y los misnios como hemos dicho, que tuvieron otras con el mismo titulo, que todo fue al modo que tuvo la estatua de Nabucodonosor, comenzando en cabezas de oro, y acabando en miserables pies de barro y lamentables caydas ; y ojala llegue el cscarmiento y disengano destas a tiempo que no sucedan otras mayores disgracias a titulo del Dorado, y otras tales jornadas. t Sydney Papers, ii., 90. Xlbid., 91, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 345 and it was intended to send him there as lord deputy ; but this he little liked,* and Essex, fatally for himself, accepted the appointment. In the subsequent troubles of that mis- guided earl he acted an ungenerous part, and was suspected f of resorting to base artifices against him ; but of this there is neither proof nor probability : no statesman, worthy to be so called (and Raleigh assuredly was worthy), would have used means for injuring a rival, which, if discovered, must have proved more deeply injurious to himself. For a while he figured J as a courtier, and seemed to prosper as a politician. When preparations were made against an apprehended inva- sion, he was appointed vice-admiral. The queen, indeed, did not believe that "the Spaniards would assail her land" ; yet she gave " special order that all things should be in readiness to repulse them " ; and though peace was generally desired, and not without cause, they who most affected it, and thought the country was not able to endure the charges of war, well knew that the " manner of treating was good when we had a fleet at sea and an army ready within eight days, with sword in hand".§ His advice was taken for the victualling and manning of Ireland. || When commissioners were appointed to treat in the Low Countries for peace, he made great suit for the appointment ; but it was thought the queen perceived *' that, if he were one, he would stand to be made a counsellor ere he went, unto which she had no fancy ".IT Discontented at this, he withdrew with his lady to Sherbourne, and took with him Cecil's son, " a young youth of great hope," to be brought * Sydney Papers^ 96. + " The world suspects him about the libels, how justly I may not judge of, for God knows best all men's doings, and will, when please him, reveal it " (Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, 13th December, 1599. Sydney Papers, ii., 50). :J: " He wore a suit of silver armour at the tourneys ; his sword-hilt and belt were studded with diamonds, pearls, and rubies ; his court dress, on occasions of state, was said to be covered with jewels to the value of 60,000/. ; and even his shoes glistened with precious stones. It was in this splendid apparel that he waited on his royal mistress as captain of her guard during those visits to the houses of her nobility known by the name of progresses (Tytler's Life of Raleigh, 227). Rowland Whyte says (12th January, 1599), "The Earl of Northumber- land is a perpetual courtier, and familiar with Sir Walter Raleigh at cards," (Sydney Papers, ii., 159). %Sydney Papers^ ii., 113,1114. \\Ihid.^ 159. 11 Ibid., 178. 346 ENGLISH SEAMEN up with his family ; upon such terms of confidence and friend- ship were Sir Walter and the secretary at this time.* He did not remain many months in retirement, but, when the lord chamberlain's life was despaired of, came again to court, to press for the vice-chamberlain's place. f Failing in this, he went over with Lord Cobham, " to see the camp and siege of Fort Isabella, near Ostend " ; a pretence which is supposed to have covered some secret J mission. Shortly after his return, he obtained the government of Jersey, upon the death of Sir Anthony Pawlett : § he was not required to * Sydney Papers, ii., 179, 181, 185, 188, 214. flbid., 198. X Cecil says, in a letter to the commissioners for the treaty of Boulogne, " I have little more at this time to trouble you withal ; only I think good to preoccupate with you' another circumstance, if they hear it, which is, the going over of my Lord of Northumberland and my Lord of Rutland, and now my Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh ; of whom, if they speak (but not otherwise), you may use this argument, that they have no charge, nor carried either horse or man, but some half a dozen of their own : but, finding the queen is so resolved to have peace (if good con- ditions could be had), they obtained leave, with importunity, to see this one action, before they should become desperate of that kind in her majesty's time, which God long continue ". Sir Henry Neville, who was one of the commissioners at Boulogne, says, " I cannot think but they have some other end, although he be not worthy to know it"; and, a little after, "I hear their journey was not altogether idle, not upon curiosity only; but that they carried some message, which did no harm" (Cayley's Life of Raleigh, i., 329-331). Win wood's Memorials quoted. § There were some difficulties in the way of the appointment. Rowland Whyte writes (12th August, 1600), " The Lord Harry Seymour claims a former grant of her majesty, of 300Z. a year paid out of it, as he had in Pawlett's time ". i6th August, *' Sir William Russel standing for the government of Jersey, hath given a stop to Sir Walter Raleigh's having it ; but the opinion is Sir Walter will carry it, who, I hear, hath dealt with Sir William Russel to give over his suit, and he would resign unto him the wardenship of the stannaries, and the lieutenancy of Cornwall. But Sir William Russel stands upon these terms, — * to have what her majesty will please to give him, as merely from herself, without being beholding to the other '. My Lord Harry Seymour, on the other side, hopes well on her majesty's gracious promise, and persists in his suit Sir Walter Raleigh hath had three or four fits of an ague. His own credit with the queen is of late grown good, and he cannot want the assistance of his friends, whose authority is greatest." 23d August, " Sir Walter Raleigh shall have the government of Jersey ; and it is doubtful if he part with the stannaries or no. A commission will be sent to survey the island, and the charges of building a new fort. It should seem Sir Walter Raleigh will be content to raise a fort upon his own charges ; and he must pay 300/. a year to my Lord Harry Seymour " {Sydney Papers, ii., 209, 210, 212). SIR WALTER RALEIGH 347 reside there ; and in Elizabeth's last parliament he sat as one of the knights of the shire for Cornwall. An act of Henry VIII., by which every person occupying land apt for tillage was enjoined, under a penalty of three and fourpence, for every sixty acres to sow one rood yearly, either with flax or hemp-seed, had been revived in the fifth year of Elizabeth, and repealed thirty years later. It was proposed to re-enact the provision.* Raleigh objected, upon a wider view of the subject than was taken by those who brought the question forward. "For my part," said he, "I do not like this con- straining of men to manure or use their grounds at our wills, but rather let every man use his ground to that which it is most fit for, and therein use his own discretion. For halsers, cables, cordage, and the like, we have plentifully enough from foreign nations ; and we have divers counties here in England which make thereof in great abundance. And the bill of till- age may be a sufficient motive to us, in this case, not to take the course that this bill intendeth ; for when the law provideth that every man must plough the third part of his land, I know it, 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 withal : nay, they have been fain to have others to plough it ; which, if it had This annual payment was reserved to the crown in Raleigh's patent, to be paid into the exchequer half-yearly. But, among the donations made by James on his accession, it appears that he released to Sir Walter this annuity (Ellis's Original Letters, iii., 480). The appointment was for life. Mr. Cayley has printed the patent from Rymer's Foedera (xvi. 398), in the appendix to his Life of Raleigh. * The original reason assigned was, that the king, " calling to his most blessed remembrance the great number of idle people daily increasing throughout his realm, supposed that one great cause thereof was by the continual bringing into the same the great number of wares and merchandises from beyond sea, ready wrought by manual occupation, one kind being linen cloth, in marvellous great quantity. Hence other countries drew from this inestimable sums of money ; and also the people of this realm, as well men as women, which should and might be set on work in spinning, weaving, and making of linen cloth, were living in idleness and ociosity, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, great diminution of the king's people, and extreme ruin, decay, and impoverish- ment of this realm. For reformation thereof, the king, like a most virtuous prince, nothing so much coveting as the increase of the commonwealth, with also the virtuous exercise of his most loving subjects and people, and to avoid that most abominable vice of idleness out of the realm, with the advice and assent of parliament, enacted this law." S48 ENGLISH SEAMEM been unploughed, would have been good pasture for beasts, or might have been converted to other good uses." * On this occasion Raleigh's arguments prevailed with the house ; but when he spoke against the statute of tillage, he was not so favourably heard. "I think/' said he, "this law fit to be repealed ; for many poor men are not able to find seed to sow so much ground as they are bound to plough : which they must do, or incur the penalty of the statute. Besides, all nations abound with corn. France offered the queen to serve Ireland with corn at sixteen shillings a quarter, which is but two shillings a bushel. If we should sell it so here, the ploughman would be beggared. The Low Country man, and the Hollander, who never sow corn, hath by his industry such plenty, that they will serve other nations. The Spaniard, who often wanteth com, had we never so much plenty, would never be beholden to the Englishman for it, neither to the Low Country man, nor to France, but will fetch it even of the very barbarian ; and that which the barbarian hath been sowing for these 200 years (I mean for traffic of corn into Spain), their king, in policy, hath set at liberty of himself, because he will not be beholden unto other nations. And, therefore, I think the best course is, to set it at liberty, and leave every man free, which is the desire of a true Englishman, "f But here he was opposed by Cecil, who said, ^' If we debar tillage, we give place to the depopulator ; and then, if the poor be thrust out of their houses, straight we catch them with the statute of inmates. If they wander abroad, and be stubborn, they are within the danger of the statute of rogues. If they be more humble and urgent beggars, then are they within the danger of the statute of the poor to be whipt or tormented. | So by this means undo this statute, and you endanger many thousands. Posterior dies discipulus pnoris." The majority agreed with Cecil, and pre- ferred the continuance of the lesser evil to the increase of a greater. The Spaniard had landed some troops in Ireland while the committee on the subsidy sat ; and Raleigh called upon the house to consider to what intent they came together, and now on their coming what was to be considered. " For the sub- * Cayley, i., 343. Townshend's Hist. Coll. quoted. t/6Jrf., 348. jTytler, 243. SIR WALTER RALEIGH S49 sidy," said he, "and the manner and quality thereof, I will now only intimate thus much unto you ; that the last parlia- ment only three subsidies were granted, upon fear that the Spaniards were coming ; but we see now they are come, and have set foot even in the queen's territories, and, therefore, are the more of us to be respected and regarded. And, seeing the sale of Her Highness's own jewels, the great loans the subjects have lent her yet unpaid, the continual selling of her lands and decaying of her revenues, the sparing even out of her own purse and apparel for our sakes, will not serve, but yet she must be fain to call her court of parliament for our advice and aid in this case, I wish, for my own part, as a particular member of this commonwealth, that we may not do less than we did before ; and that we also would bountifully, according to our estates, contribute to the necessity of Her Majesty as now it standeth." One member moved that three- pound men might be exempted, and all above that rate pay accordingly, so as to make up a full subsidy. Another pro- posed that the four-pound men might also be exempted, and four subsidies be received from the rich, which should be termed a contribution, because it might make an innovation. Upon this Raleigh observed, "If all pay alike, none will be aggrieved ; if any be exempted, doubtless it will breed much grief, and the feeling will be great to those three-pound men that will feel anything, but it will be nothing to them that know anything ". The three-pound men accordingly were included. In a subsequent debate, Cecil referred to what had passed upon this subject. "The most voices," said he, "concluded that there should be no exception of the three-pound men, because, according to their rate, some were assessed under value : besides, separation might breed emulation, suspicion of partiality, and confusion ; and the whole realm, when each man comes into his country, will be better satisfied when they shall know they have spared no man, nor made any disjunc- tion. It was said by a member of the house, that he knew some poor people pawned their pots and pans to pay the sub- sidy. It may be you dwell where you see and hear : I dwell where I hear and believe ; and this I know, that neither pot, nor pan, nor dish, nor spoon should be spared when danger is at our elbows. But he that spake this, in my conscience, spake it not to hinder the subsidy, or the greatness of the gift, but to show the poverty of some assessed, and, by sparing 350 ENGLISH SEAMEN them, to yield them relief. But by no means would I have the three-pound men exempted, because I do wish the King of Spain might know how willing we are to sell all in defence of God's religion, our prince, and country. I have read, that when Hannibal resolved to sack Rome, he dwelt in the cities adjoining, and never feared or doubted of his enterprise, till word was brought him that the maidens, ladies, and women of Rome sold their ear-rings, jewels, and all their necessaries, to maintain war against him." Bacon, arguing also against the exemption of the three- pound men, concluded his speech by saying that it was dulds tractus pari jugo ; therefore the poor, as well as the rich, are not to be exempted. Sir Walter commented upon what had fallen from both speakers. " I like not," said he, "that the Spaniards, our enemies, should know of our selling our pots and pans to pay subsidies. Well may you call it policy, as an honourable person alleged ; but 1 am sure it argues poverty in the State. And for the motion that was last made, of dulcis tractus pari jugo, call you this ^9«r jugum, when a poor man pays as much as a rich, and perad- venture his estate is no better than he is set at, or but little better ; when our estates, that be thirty or forty pounds on the queen s books, are not the hundredth part of our wealth ? Therefore it is not dulcis, nor pari." Cecil, after replying to another member, who had said that the subsidy seemed to be the alpha and omega of this parliament, and assuring them that Her Majesty desired her laws might be perused and amended, and meant not to dissolve the parliament till some things had been amended, noticed Raleigh's remarks upon his speech. " For that that I said,' ' said he, " touching the Spaniards knowing of our sale of our pots and pans, and all we have, to keep him out, which should be a matter of policy, to which the gentlemen took exceptions, I say it is true ; and yet what I said has been mistaken. I say it is good the Spaniard should know how willing we are to sell all we have to keep him out ; yet I do not say it is good he should know we do sell them : that is, I would have him know our willingness to sell, though there be no need, but not of our poverty in selling, or of any necessity we have to sell them, which, I think, none will do, neither shall need to do ; " a declaration which was received with loud and general cries of "No, no" : as much as to say no man did so.* * Pari. Hist., i., 915-920. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 351 When " the grand affair of monopolies," at which Cecil had glanced when he spoke of things to be amended, was brought before the house, Raleigh was observed to blush when the monopoly of cards was mentioned. He defended himself, however, and ably, upon another ground, saying, " I am urged to speak in two respects ; the one, because I find myself touched in particular ; the other, in that I take some imputa- tion of slander to be offered unto Her Majesty by the gentle- man that first mentioned tin ; for that being one of the principal commodities of this kingdom, and being in Cornwall, it hath ever, so long as there were any, belonged to the dukes of Cornwall, and they had special patents of privileges. It pleased Her Majesty freely to bestow upon me that privilege ; and that patent being word for word the very same the duke's is, and because, by reason of mine office of lord warden of the stannary, I can sufficiently inform the house of the state thereof, I will make bold to deliver it unto you. When the tin is taken out of the mine, and melted and refined, then is every piece containing an hundredweight sealed with the duke's seaL Now, I will tell you that, before the granting of my patent, whether tin were but of seventeen shillings an hundredweight, and so upwards to fifty shillings, yet the poor workmen never had above two shillings a week, finding them- selves ; but, since my patent, whosoever will work may, and be tin at what price soever, they have four shillings a week truly paid. There is no poor that will work there but may, and have that wages. Notwithstanding, if all others may be repealed, I will give my consent as freely to the canceUing of this, as any member of this house. * A bill having been brought in " for the more diligent resort to church on Sundays," it was opposed by Raleigh, who, among other reasons, exposed the inconvenience of its pro- visions. "All the churchwardens of every shire," he said, * Pari. Hist.t i., 928. Raleigh appears to have been popular in Corn- wall. Carew, dedicating his survey of that country to him as lord warden of the stannaries and lieutenant-general of the county, says it "entreateth of the province and persons over whose bodies and estates you carry a large both martial and civil command, but in whose hearts and loves you possess a far greater interest by your 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 always as a magistrate of yourself, but also very often as a suitor and solicitor to others of the highest places. S52 ENGLISH SEAMEN " must come to the assizes to give information to the grand jury. Say, then, there be an hundred and twenty parishes in a shire, there must come extraordinary two hundred and forty churchwardens ; and say that but two in a parish offend in a quarter of a year, that makes, with the offenders, four hundred and eighty persons to appear. What great multitudes will this bring together ; what quarrelling and danger may happen ; and how prejudicial must it be to give such authority to a mere churchwarden ! " When the question was put, "the ayes went forth, and were 105, and the noes within I06 ; but the ayes said they had the speaker's vote, which would make it even. And then it was disputed whether the speaker had a voice. Sir Edward Hobby said, that when the queen gave them leave to choose a speaker, she gave leave to choose one of their own number (and not a stranger), a citizen of London, and a member ; and, therefore, he had a voice ; but Raleigh replied, that the speaker was foreclosed of his voice by taking that place, which was forced upon him ; that he was to be indifferent for both parties ; and that, by the order of the house, the bill, therefore, was lost." The speaker con- firmed this ; and here the business should have ended, if a member had not angrily declared that he thought it not lost, for there had been ''foul and great abuse offered in this matter. A gentleman," he continued, "that would willingly have gone forth, according to his conscience, was pulled back. Though I much reverence my masters of the Temple, and am bound to our benchers of the Middle Temple, yet, if it will please the house, and you, Mr. Speaker, to command me to name him, I will." The general opinion was against this ; but upon Cecil's desire, the angry member named Mr. Dale, of the Middle Temple. "Why," said Raleigh, "if it please you, it is a small matter to pull one by the sleeve, for I have done so myself oftentimes." "Great and loud speech and stir," says the reporter, "there was in the house upon this." After silence was restored, the comptroller, who certainly had not on this occasion controlled his own temper, spake thus : " It is a most intolerable dis- order. I think the offence is a heinous offence both against God and this assembly : for the first, in that every man is to go according to his conscience, and not by compulsion ; and for the other gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, that said he had often done the like, I think he may be ashamed of it ; for SIR WALTER RALEIGH 353 large is his conscience, if, in a matter of so great consequence, he will be drawn either forwards or backwards by the sleeve ; and I think it so heinous, that he * ought to answer it at the bar." Here Cecil interposed, saying, " I am sorry to see this disorder. The offence which the gentleman that last spake spoke of, I confess, is great and punishable ; and this I wish may be inflicted on him, — that he, whose voice may be drawn either forwards or backwards by the sleeve, like a dog in a string, may be no more of this house ; and I wish, for his credit's sake, he would not. But that it should be so great as to be called to the bar, I see no reason ; neither do I know why any in this house should speak so imperiously as to have a gentleman of his place and quality (pointing to Sir Walter) called to the bar : I see no reason for it. For the matter itself, the noes were 106, and the ayes 105 : the speaker hath no voice ; and, though I am sorry to say it, yet I must needs confess, lost it is, and farewell it ! " f And so the house rose confusedly. On this occasion Cecil is seen acting a friendly part towards Raleigh : the censure in his speech could not affect him, who was not a man to be led by the sleeve, nor suspected of being so. But the political alliance between them had been dis- solved, and with it their friendship : friendship it must have been, when Cecil sent his son to be brought up in Raleigh's family at Sherbourne. Raleigh was often heard to say that he never apprehended this rupture, till a foresight thereof crossed his mind as he was returning by water from Essex's execution. | He is said to have disobliged Cecil, by making all the opposi- tion in his power to a peace which the secretary was en- deavouring to bring about, in conformity with the interests of the country, the wishes of Elizabeth, and the well-known inclination of the King of Scotland.§ The motive which in- duced Raleigh to oppose it, at a time when he also was making his court to James, must have been a strong one : perhaps he was chiefly influenced by his wild belief concerning El Dorado, and the hope of leading an expedition for its conquest. James had been prepossessed against Raleigh by Essex, who represented his own rivals as enemies to the succession, and * He is said to have meant Mr. Dale ; but the house at the time supposed that Raleigh was intended, as being the person last named. fParl. Histf 951-953. JOsborn, ii., 79. %Ihid., 107. 23 354 ENGLISH SEAMEN suggested that, if the Spaniards should attempt to enforce the pretended claim of their infanta to the crown, Raleigh might assist their invasion, by receiving them either in the west of England, or in his government of Jersey.* Moreover, he was not forgiven by that king for his enmity to Essex ; f an enmity which was believed not to have been satisfied with the earl's downfall, but to have sought his death. Cecil was not supposed to have been impelled by any personal malice. James was informed that many even of Essex's friends " were willing that he should rather break his neck, by desperate attempts suitable to their own humours, than be saved and redeemed by the faith and industry of Cecil, who, of all men living, in case he had found suhjectum bene dispositum, would have dealt best with him, and perfected the work of his deliverance".! Essex, indeed, was a man to be feared for his rashness only, not for his abilities ; and not to be disliked for any personal qualities, even by a rival. Accordingly, Cecil seems in his conduct towards him to have been always placable. But when he ceased to be Raleigh's friend, he became his enemy, knowing that he had to compete with one as pohtic as himself, perhaps more ambitious, and certainly not more scrupulous. Upon Elizabeth's death and the accession of her successor, Cecil was found to possess the entire confidence of the new king, holding the same place in his councils as he had done in the queen's ; and Raleigh was implicated in a conspiracy, which cannot be fully explained by any documents which have yet been brought to light. No common object could *Cayley, i., 335. Hardwicke's State Papers, No. xxii. t Bishop Kennett says, " There is mentioned in Buck's manuscript a memorial of Raleigh to King James, wherein he reflects heavily upon Cecil in the matter of Essex, and, vindicating himself, throws the whole blame upon the other. At the end of that memorial, he lays open the conduct of Cecil and his father, the Lord Burleigh, in the matter of Queen Mary Stuart; and, with a singular bitterness of style, not only vindicates the memory of Elizabeth, but lays the death of that unfortunate queen chiefly at the door of Cecil and his father; for which he appeals to Davison, then in prison; the man that had despatched the warrant for her execution, contrary to Queen Elizabeth's express command. All this had no influence on King James, and irritated Cecil the more against Raleigh, which helped to sour a temper that of itself was impatient of injuries, and, for all his other excellent qualities, was not fitted for the reverse of fortune " {Pari. Hist., ii., 46). X Censura Literaria, ii., 205. Secret Cor. of Cecil, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 355 have united men of such discordant principles as were engaged in this wild treason. Of the principal persons concerned, Lord Grey of Wilton was a Puritan ; Lord Cobham, a man too loose in principle to be ascribed to any church or sect ; and "Raleigh had upon him (though unjustly) the suspicion of atheism".* Watson, the prime mover, and Clarke, were Romish priests. The other parties were Sir Griffin Markham and Sir Edward Parham ; George Brooke, who was Cobham's brother ; Brookesby, and Copley, — the first an esquire, the latter a gentleman. They had divided the spoils of office among themselves : Watson was to be lord chancellor ; Brooke, lord treasurer ; Markham, secretary in Cecil's stead ; and Grey, lord marshal Neither Raleigh nor Cobham were originally concerned in this crude treason. James, on his arrival in England, had not received Sir Walter favourably : he took from him his office of captain of the guard, and gave it to Sir Thomas Erskine. But this office was one which would ordinarily be bestowed for personal considerations ; and, as some compensation, he had been released from the annuity of 300/. charged on his government of Jersey, and "a good arrearage of debt had been forgiven him ". He was, however, openly a discontented man ; perhaps the more so, because he found in James a determined dislike to his martial projects. Raleigh had not only presented him with a treatise, " wherein, with great animosity, he opposed the peace with Spain, then in treaty," but had offered to carry 2000 men to invade the Spaniards, without the king's charge. But the king was alike by temper and by his system of policy disposed, above all things, to "seek peace and ensue it"; and Raleigh saw himself re- strained from his schemes of conquest in Guiana, and without * These are Whitlocke's words in his earlier Memorials (p. 273). Hume says he *' was suspected to be of that philosophical sect who were then extremely rare in England, and who have since received the appellation oi free-thinkers" (vol. vi., p. 8, ed. 1789). "Watson desired an oath of secrecy for them all, which was no more than needful," says Fuller, " considering their different interests, rather pieced than united, patched than pieced together. Had one lost his religion, he might have found it (though I confess a treason is but a bad place to seek it in) in this conspiracy, wherein men of all persuasions were engaged. Their parts were as different as their opinions ; some of them being conceived too wise to begin, and others too weak to finish, 80 dangerous a design " {Church History^ vol. x., p. 9). S56 ENGLISH SEAMEN hope of advancement at home. He listened then as a mal- content and an intriguer to dangerous suggestions, thinking himself too wary and too knowing to be drawn into treason. Neither was he at first suspected : but Copley having been apprehended upon '^some scout-notice of conventicles for some such purpose," Markham and Brooke, fearing that he would accuse them, attempted to escape. When it was known that Brooke was engaged in it, his brother Cobham was suspected ; and then Cecil (to use his own words) doubted Raleigh to be a partaker. Cobham, being called in question, confessed his own treason, and accused Raleigh; protesting that he should never have entered into these courses but for Raleigh's instigation. Upon this Raleigh was committed to the Tower ; and there, while some of the other prisoners were under examination, he attempted to kill himself. This, how- ever, was not represented by his enemies as any proof of guilt, but as the act of one who seemed "unable to endure his misfortunes, and protested his innocency, with carelessness of life".* The plague then raging in London, the term was held at Winchester ; and Brooke, Markham, Brookesby, Copley, Par- ham, and the two priests, were there brought to trial for high treason. The indictment was for consulting with the Lord Grey and others to surprise the king and the young prince at Greenwich, and carry them to the Tower, where the treasures and jewels should serve their turn for effecting their farther purposes. If they failed in obtaining possession of the Tower, they thought to convey them to Dover Castle, and in either place to keep the king three months, and exact from him three things : first, a general pardon of all their proceedings ; secondly, a toleration of religion, with an equality of admission to all offices within his court or elsewhere ; thirdly, that he should remove and cut off the lord chancellor, Cecil, and the chief justice, and others, who should be thought to hinder * " And in that humour he had wounded himself under the right pap, but no way mortally, being, in truth, rather a cut than a stab." This is stated in a letter of Cecil to the ambassador in France, first printed by Mr. Cayley (i., 360). Mr. Cay ley, in a note upon this circumstance, which no former biographer had mentioned, says that *' in a diary of this period by Cecil, in the Hatfield Library, is likewise a memorandum that Raleigh and Brooke were sent to the Tower from Fulham, July 19, 1603 ; and on the 27th Sir Walter attempted to stab himself to the heart with a knife y hut missed his heart, though he wounded himself greatly ". SIR WALTER RALEIGH 857 their designment. For the better effecting of this purpose, Watson had devised an oath to be administered for the pre- servation of the king's person, for the advancement of the Romish religion, and for concealing all secrets that should be revealed to them. Watson, it was said, was the villainous hatcher of these treasons, and Brooke as eager a prosecutor ; and the Lord Grey, " more eager and violent than he, purposed to make a suit to the king for carrying over a regiment for the relief of Ostend, meaning to have it ready for the defence of his own person in this action, as fearing the greatness of the Roman Catholic forces, according to the promises of Brooke, Markham, and Watson, and knowing not how he might be dealt withal amongst them".* Parham was ac- quitted : f the others " were all condemned upon their own confessions, which were set down under their own hands and declarations, and compiled (says Sir Dudley Carleton) with such labour and care, to make the matter they undertook seem very feasible, as if they had feared they should not say enough to hang themselves." Before Raleigh (who was the only one of the accused that stood upon bis innocence) was brought to trial, he addressed this letter to the king : " It is one part of the office of a just and worthy prince to hear the complaints of his vassals ; especially such as are in great misery. I know that, among many presumptions gathered against me, your majesty hath been persuaded that I was one of them who were greatly discontented, and, therefore, the more likely to prove disloyal. But the great God of heaven and earth so relieve me as I was •State Trials, i'u, 6i. + This then most unusual event in such cases is thus noticed in a letter written at the time by Francis, afterwards Lord Arungier, recently pub- lished, for the first time, by Mr. Kempe from the Losely Manuscripts : — " My Lord Cecil showed himself very honourable in making way to the acquittal of Sir Edward Parham, who for anything that appeared, knew not of any treason intended for the surprise of the king, but was abused by Watson, and made to believe that my Lord Grey, who was one of his conspiracy, had a plot against the papists : this honourable dealing of my Lord Cecil did cause a great and extraordinary applause in divers of the hearers by clapping of hands. Sir Edward Parham hath had better hap than any man these forty-five years to be acquitted upon an arraign- ment of high treason ; but next to God he must thank Sir Francis Davey, the foreman of the jury, who first made the motion for him, otherwise it had passed sub silentio, and next he must thank my Lord Cecil " (Losely Manuscripts, pp. 376, 377). 358 ENGLISH SEAMEN the contrary ! And I took it as a great comfort to behold your majesty, alway learning some good and bettering my knowledge by hearing your majesty discourse ; and do most humbly beseech your majesty not to believe any of those, in my particular, who, under pretence of offences to kings, do easily work their particular revenge. I trust no man, under colour of making examples, shall persuade you to leave the word merciful out of your majesty's style ; for it will no less profit your majesty, and become your greatness, than the word invincible. It is true, that the Jaws of England are no less jealous of the king, than Caesar was of Pompey's wife ; who, notwithstanding she was cleared for keeping company with Claudius, yet for being suspected he condemned her. For myself, I protest before the everlasting God (and I speak it to my master and sovereign) that I never invented treason, consented to treason, nor performed treason, against you ! and yet I know I shall fall in manus eorum a quibus non possum evadere, unless by your majesty's gracious compassion I be sustained. Our law, therefore, most merciful prince, knowing her own cruelty, and knowing this she is wont to compound treasons out of presumptions and circumstances, doth give this charitable advice to the king, her supreme : — Non solum sapiens esset rex sed et misericors, ut cum sapientia misericordetur, et sit Justus, cum tutius sit redder e rationem miseiicordice quamjudicii. "I do therefore, on the knees of my heart, beseech your majesty to take counsel from your own sweet and comfortable disposition ; and to remember that 1 have loved your majesty twenty years, for which your majesty has given me no reward. And it is fitter that I should be indebted to my sovereign lord, than the king to his poor vassal. Save me, therefore, most merciful prince, that I may owe your majesty my life itself, than which there cannot be a greater debt. Lend it me, at least, my sovereign lord, that I may pay it in your service, when your majesty shall please to command it. If the law destroy me, your majesty shall put me out of your power, and then I shall have none to fear, none to reverence, but the King of kings. "Your majesty's most humble vassal, "Walter Raleigh." Two days after the conviction of the first party, Raleigh was arraigned for conspiring to deprive the king of his SIR WALTER RALEIGH 359 government, to raise up sedition within the realm, to alter religion, to bring in the Roman superstition, and to procure foreign enemies to invade the kingdom. He was charged with conferring with Cobham how to advance the Lady Arabella (daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, the king's uncle), to the crown. It was agreed, the indictment said, that Cobham should treat with Aremberg, ambassador from the Archduke Albert, to obtain from him 600,000 crowns for bringing to pass this treason ; that he should go to the arch- duke to procure him to advance the pretended title of Arabella, and then to Spain on the same business. It was also agreed that Arabella should write to the archduke, the King of Spain, and the Duke of Savoy ; and promise to establish peace between England and Spain, to tolerate the popish and Roman superstition, and to be ruled by them in contracting her marriage. The trial was remarkable for the virulent insolence of the attorney-general. Sir Edward Coke, and the ability with which Raleigh defended himself. "Did I," said he, "ever speak with this lady } here is no treason of mine done. If my Lord Cobham be a traitor, what is that to me ?" " All that he did," replied Coke, " was by thy instigation, thou viper ! for I thou thee, thou traitor ! " Raleigh calmly rejoined, " It becometh not a man of quality and virtue to call me so. But I take comfort in it ; it is all you can do." " Have I angered you ? " said the insolent attorney. " I am in no case to be angry," the prisoner replied ; and the chief justice, Popham, then interposed, saying, — " Sir Walter, Mr. Attorney speaketh out of the zeal of his duty for the service of the king, and you for your life ; be valiant on both sides ". Cobham's examina- tion was read, and Raleigh asked to see it, saying, " This is absolutely all the evidence can be brought against me : poor stuff! You gentlemen of the jury, I pray you understand this. This is that which must either condemn or give me life ; which must free me, or send my wife and children to beg their bread about the streets. This is that must prove me a notorious traitor, or a true subject to the king." He made an able answer ; denying everything treasonable, and dwelling upon the absurdity of the alleged treason. Yet he admitted that Cobham had offered him 8000 crowns if he would further the peace, and that he had suspected Cobham to have dealings with Aremberg. "I asked him," said he, "who shall have 360 ENGLISH SEAMEN the rest of the money. He answered, 'I will offer such a nobleman some of it '. I said, he will not be persuaded by you, and will extremely hate you for such a motion. Let me be pinched to death with hot irons if ever I knew there was any intention to bestow the money on discontented persons." "You try me by the Spanish Inquisition/' said Raleigh, "if you proceed only by the circumstances, without two witnesses. Yet I will not stand to defend this point in law, if the king will have it so : it may be an error in me ; and if those laws be repealed, yet I hope the equity of them remains still ; but if you affirm it, it must be a law to posterity. The proof of the common law is by witness and jury. Let Cobham be here ; let him speak it. Call my accusers before my face, and I have done." But it was maintained by the court that it sufficed now if these " proofs were made either underhand, or by testimony of witnesses, or by oaths ". " The crown," said Coke, " shall never stand one year on the head of the king my master, if a traitor may not be condemned by circum- stances." "Sir Walter presseth," said Cecil, "that my Lord Cobham should be brought face to face. If he asks things of favour and grace, they must come only from him that can give them. If we sit here as commissioners, how shall we be satisfied unless we hear the judges speak ?" They declared that it could not be granted. "Remember," said Raleigh, " it is absolutely the commandment of God, ^ If a false witness rise up, you shall cause him to be brought before the judges ; if he be found false, he shall have the punishment which the accused should have had '. It is very sure, for my lord to accuse me is my certain danger ; and it may be a means to excuse himself. The king desires nothing but the knowledge of the truth, and would have no advantage taken by severity of the law. If ever we had a gracious king, now we have : I hope, as he is, such are his ministers. If there be but a trial of five marks at common law, a witness must be deposed. Good my lords, let my accuser come face to face, and be deposed I " He argued upon the inconsistency of such a treason with the course of his life. " Presumptions," said he, " must proceed from precedent or subsequent facts. I have spent 40,000 crowns of my own against the Spaniard.* If I * In a letter written before the trial, and addressed to the earls of Not- tingham, Suffolk, and Devonshire, and to Lord Cecil, Raleigh says, " God doth know, and I can give an account of it, that I have spent 40,000 SIR WALTER RALEIGH S6l had died in Guiana, I had not left 300 marks a year to ray wife and son. I, that have always condemned the Spanish faction, methinks it is a strange thing that now I should affect it. Remember what St. Austin says : Sic judicale tanquam ab alio mox judicandi ; iinus judex, unum tribunal . If you would be contented on presumptions to be delivered up to be slaughtered, to have your wives and children turned into the streets to beg their bread, — if you would be contented to be so judged, judge so of me." The conspiracy, indeed, consisted, like a bad play, of two plots, loosely * connected, and each absurd in itself. Cobham had said that the parties who were first brought to trial were but on the bye, whereas Raleigh and he were on the main ; and when Brooke, to whom this was said, was asked the exposition of these words, he replied, though reluctantly, that by the main was meant the taking away of the king and his issue. The one plot was to place the king in duresse, and extort certain terms from him ; the other, to place Arabella on the throne by foreign aid. Both were fully confessed, and under circumstances which leave no doubt that the confession crowns of mine own against that king and nation ; that I never reserved so much of all my fortunes as to purchase 40/. per annum land : that I have been a violent persecutor and fartherer of all enterprises against that nation. I have served against them in person ; and how, my lord admiral and my Lord of Suffolk can witness. I discovered myself the richest part of all his Indies. I have planted in his territories. I offered his majesty, at my Uncle Carew's, to carry 2000 men to invade him, without the king's charge. Alas ! to what end should we live in the world, if all the endeavours of so many testimonies shall be blown off with one blast of breath, or be prevented by one man's word" (Cayley, i., 369). * Cecil says in his letter to the ambassador at Paris, " Although the Lord Cobham was no particular actor nor contriver of this conspiracy, yet he had another iron in the fire, which in general terms he let fall to his brother and some others, though he used them not particularly in this project, no more than they had done him in others, always thinking, common to them all, that if one sped not, another might " (Cayley, i., 362). Osborn speaks of Raleigh as if he were more deeply implicated in the conspiracy than he appears to have been : otherwise the opinion which he delivers concerning it was well deserved. " Grey, Cobham, and Raleigh," he says, " professed enemies to the late Earl of Essex, and no weak instruments in his destruction, fell into a treason of a like depth with his ; and so improbable to hurt others or benefit themselves, that if ever folly was capable of the title, or pity due to innocence, theirs might claim so large share as not possible to be too severely condemned, or slightly enough punished " (ii., 106). 362 ENGLISH SEAMEN was sincere : the doubtful question is, how far was Raleigh implicated ? '' There hath been a touch of the Lady Arabella Stuart/' said Cecil upon the trial, " a near kinswoman of the king's. 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 letter from my Lord Cobham to prepare her, which she laughed at, and immediately sent it to the king. So far was she from discontentment, that she laughed him to scorn. But you see how far the Count of Aremberg did consent." It has been conjectured ^ (and the crooked policy of those days renders the conjecture not im- probable) that Aremberg had encouraged the plot, with the view of destroying Raleigh, who was the man of all others most dreaded by the Spaniards ; and that the first intimation to the Government came from Aremberg. It was thought also that Watson had been entrapped into the conspiracy by the Jesuits, who thus revenged themselves for a book -|- which * Rapin (2nd edit.), ii., 161. t A notable book, says Fuller, written in a scholastic way, consisting of ten quodlihets each, whereof it subdivided into as many articles. It discovereth the Jesuits in their colours, ferreting them out of all their bur- rows of equivocation and mental reservation, holding Proteus so hard to it, that in despite of his changing into many shapes, he is forced to appear in his own proper form. Yet the whole book is written with an embittered style, so that protestant charity hath a better conceit of Jesuits than to account them altogether so bad. This is the same Watson, who, though boasting of the obedience of the secular priests to their sovereign, and taxing the Jesuits for want thereof, was notwithstanding himself afterwards executed for a traitor. It seems as well seculars as Jesuits were so laden with loyalty, that both need the gallows to ease them of the burden thereof These holy fathers cunningly and covertly drew him on to this action, promoting him, who was ambitious (though pretending to much mortification), treasonably to practise his own preferment. •' The priests pleaded the silliest for themselves of all that were ar- raigned, alleging that their practice against the king could not be treason, because done against him before he was crowned ; Watson instancing in Saul, who was anointed at Ramah, and afterward made king in Mizpeh ; Clark insisted on Rehoboam as being no king till the people had made him so : Not remembering (what our lawyers there minded them of) the difference betwixt succession kings, deriving their claim from their ancestors, and one newly elected ; the English crown also being as incapable of an interregnum, as nature of a vacuity. Meantime the Jesuits looked on, and laughed at Watson's execution, to see how bunglingly secular priests went about a treason, resolving on the next platform thereof (which now they were contriving) to rectify the errors Watson had commited, not to engage in a squint-eyed company (where two did not look the same way), but to select a company of cordial catholics for the purpose" {Church History ^ b. x., pp., 2. 5, 6). SIR WALTER RALEIGH 363 he had written against them in the bitterest spirit Watson, indeed, intimated this at his death, and forgave them for it.* But Raleigh, though deluded by his own imaginations, was not likely to be duped even by the subtlest proficients in MachiavcUi's school. He was a malcontent : it was believed that with Grey and Cobham he had proposed to delay pro- claiming James till some conditions should have been made with him, and it has since appeared that he secretly j- offered his services to the French ambassador. Those services may probably have been merely to oppose a peace with the Spaniards ; and he may have thought it no disreputable artifice to obtain money from a foreign court for pursuing the scheme of policy which he supposed to be most for his country's interest as well as his own. But that he should have engaged in any direct treason was most improbable ; and not less so that he should have relied upon the Spaniards for assistance in it. There was only G^bham's single testimony against him ; that testimony was aided by his unpopularity, by the dislike with which the court and the ministers regarded him, and by his own imprudence in writing to Cobham after his arrest and before the trial. When Raleigh appealed to God and the king whether Cobham's accusations were sufficient to condemn him. Coke replied, ''The king's safety and your clearing cannot agree. I protest, before God, I never knew a clearer treason." Raleigh then said he never had had intelligence with Cobham since he came to the Tower. " Go to ! " said the attorney- general ; " I will lay thee on thy back for the confidentest traitor that ever came at a bar ! " and this was said so in- temperately that Cecil interposed, saying, " Be not so impatient, good Mr. Attorney ; give him leave to speak ". " li' I may not be patiently heard," replied the angry lawyer, "you will encourage traitors and discourage us. I am the king's sworn servant, and must speak. If he be guilty, he is a traitor ; if not, deliver him." With that he sat down in a chafe, and would speak no more until the commissioners urged and entreated him. After much ado he went on, and made a long * Stowe, 831. Speed, 886. + Hume (vi., p. 9), says, that this appears from Sully's Memoirs; and we may thence presume, he adds, that meeting with a repulse from that quarter, he had recourse for the same unwarrantable purposes to the Flemish minister. 864 ENGLISH SEAMEN repetition of all the evidence, for the direction of the jury ; and on the repeating of some things Sir Walter interrupted him, and said he did him wrong. A most remarkable dialogue ensued. *'Thou are the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived ! " said the attorney-general. " You speak indis- creetly, barbarously, and uncivilly," Raleigh replied. Coke answered, "I want words sufficient to express thy viperous treasons!" "I think you want words indeed," said Raleigh; " for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times." " Thou art an odious fellow ! " quoth Coke ; " thy name is hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride." Raleigh, who never lost his temper, coolly made answer, "It will go near to prove a measuring cast between you and me, Mr. Attorney". "Well," said Coke, " I will now make it appear to the world that there never lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou." And thereon he drew a letter out of his pocket, saying further, " My lords, you shall see this is an agent that hath writ a treatise against the Spaniard, and hath ever so detested him ; this is he that hath spent so much money against him m service ; and yet you shall all see whether his heart be not wholly Spanish. The Lord Cobham, who of his own nature was a good and honourable gentleman till over- taken by this wretch, now finding his conscience heavily burthened with some courses which the subtlety of this traitor had drawn him into, he could be at no rest with himself, nor quiet in his thoughts, until he was eased of that heavy weight : out of which passion of his mind, and discharge of his duty to his prince, and his conscience to God, taking it upon his salva- tion that he wrote nothing but the truth, with his own hand he wrote this letter. Now, sir, you shall see whether you had intelligence with Cobham within four days before he came from the Tower. If he be wholly Spanish that desired a pension of 1500/. a year from Spain, that Spain by him might have intelligence, then Raleigh is a traitor. He hath taken an apple, and pinned a letter unto it, and threw it into my Lord Cobham's window ; the contents whereof were this : 'It is doubtful whether we shall be proceeded with or no: perhaps you shall not be tried '. This was to get a retracta- tion. Oh, it was Adam's apple, whereby the devil did deceive him. Further, he wrote thus : ' Do not, as my Lord of Essex did ; take heed of a preacher ; for by his persuasion he con- fessed, and made himsell guilty '. I doubt not but this day SIR WALTER RALEIGH 3b5 God shall have as great a conquest by this traitor, and the Son of God shall be as much glorified as when it was said, Vicisti, Galilcee ! What, though Cobham retracted ; yet he could not rest nor sleep till he confirmed it again. If this be not enough to prove him a traitor, the king my master shall not live three years to an end." * He then read the Lord Cobham's letters, which were in these words, " I have thought fit to set down this to my lords, wherein I protest on my soul to write nothing but the truth. I am now come near the period of my time, therefore I confess the whole truth before God and His angels. Raleigh, four days before I came from the Tower, caused an apple to be thrown in at my chamber window ; the effect of it was to entreat me to right the wrong that I had done him in saying that I should have come home by Jersey, which under my hand to him I have retracted. His first letter I answered not, which was thrown in the same manner ; wherein he prayed me to write him a letter,f which I did. He sent me word that the judges met at Mr. Attorney's house, and that there was good hope the proceedings against us should be stayed. He sent me another time a little tobacco. At Aremberg's coming Raleigh was to have procured a pension of loOO/. a year, for which he promised that no action should be against Spain, the Low Countries, or the Indies, but he would give knowledge beforehand. He told me the States had audience with the king. He hath been the original cause of my ruin ; for I had no dealing with Aremberg but by his instigation. He hath also been the cause of my discontentment. He advised me not to be overtaken with preachers, as Essex was ; and that the king would better allow of a constant denial than to accuse any." " Oh ! damnable atheist," exclaimed Coke, when he had finished reading the letter — "he counsels him not to be counselled by preachers as Essex was. He died the child of God ; God honoured him at his death. Thou wast by when he died. Et lupes et turpes instant morientibus urscB." That reproach Raleigh must have felt, but his presence of mind never failed him upon this indecent trial. He replied, " You * State Trials, 26, 27. t So it is printed in the State Trials : the passage may be made intelligible by supposing that Cobham wrote *' which I now did ". 366 ENGLISH SEAMEN have heard a strange tale of a strange man. Now he thinks he hath matter enough to destroy me ; but the king and all of you shall witness, by our deaths, which of us was the ruin of the other. I bid a poor fellow throw in the letter at his window, written to this purpose : ' You know you have un- done me ; now write three lines to justify me ! ' In this I will die, that he hath done me wrong.'' The lord chief justice, Popham, then asked him what he said of the pension of 1500/. ^'I say," replied Raleigh, ''^that Cobham is a base, dishonourable, poor soul." " Is he base ? " cried the attorney- general ; *'I return it unto thy throat. But for thee he had been a good subject." And the lord chief justice said, "I perceive you are not so clear a man as you have protested all this while ; for you should liave discovered these matters to the king". Raleigh then produced a letter from Cobham, and desired Cecil to read it, "because he only knew his hand". In that letter Cobham said to Raleigh, "Seeing myself so near my end, for the discharge of my own conscience, and freeing myself from your blood, which also will cry vengeance against me, I protest, upon my salvation, I never practised with Spain by your procurement. God so comfort me in this my affliction as you are a true subject, for anything that I know. I will say as Daniel, purus sum e sanguine hujus. So God have mercy upon my soul, as I know no treason by you." "Now," said Raleigh, "I wonder how many souls this man hath ! He damns one in this letter and another in that I " * This letter would have swayed the jury much, if Cobham had not on the night before retracted his retractation, and declared that Raleigh had practised for it by a son of the lieutenant of the Tower, whom he had corrupted, and who carried intelligence between them.-)- Lest it should seem doubt- ful that the first letter had been drawn from Cobham, the lord chief justice wished that the jury might be satisfied upon that point ; whereupon the Earl of Devonshire affirmed that the same was merely voluntary, and had not been extracted from him by any promise or hope of pardon. The jury in less than a quarter of an hour gave their verdict, guilty. When Raleigh was asked what he could say why judgment and execution should not pass against him, he replied, " My lords, the jury have found me guilty: they must do as they are * State Trials, 27, 29. fCayley, ii., 6, 15. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 367 directed. I can say nothing why judgment should not proceed. You see whereof Cobham hath accused me ; you remember his protestations that I was never guilty. I desire the king should know of the wrongs done unto me since I came hither." " You have had no wrong. Sir Walter," said the judge. " Yes," he replied, " of Mr. Attorney. 1 desire, my lords, to remember three things to the king : first, that I was accused to be a practiser with Spain, whereas 1 never knew that my Lord Cobham meant to go thither ; I will ask no more at the king's hands, if he will affirm it : secondly, that I never knew of the practice with Arabella ; thirdly, that I never knew of my Lord Cobham's practices with Aremberg, nor of the surprising treason." The judge made answer, ''In my conscience I am persuaded that Cobham hath accused you truly. You cannot deny that you were dealt with to have a pension to be a spy for Spain ; therefore you are not so true to the king, as you have protested to me." * Raleigh only replied, " I submit myself to the king's mercy. I know his mercy is greater than my offences. I recommend my wife and son of tender years, unbrought up, to his compassion." Popham then proceeded to pass sentence, and in so doing expressed the opinion which was then generally entertained concerning Raleigh. "I thought," said he, "I should never have seen this day, to have stood in this place to give sentence of death against you ; because I thought it impossible that one of so great parts should have fallen so grievously. God hath bestowed on you many benefits. You have been a man fit and able to have served the king in good place. You had brought yourself into a good state of living ; if you had entered into a good consideration of your estate, and not suffered your own wit to have entrapped yourself, you might have lived in good comfort. It is best for man not to seek to climb too high, lest he fall ; nor yet to creep too low, lest he be trodden on. You might have lived well with 3000/. a year, for so I have heard your revenues to be. I know nothing might move you to be discontented ; but if you had been down, you know Fortune's wheel, when it is turned about, riseth again. I never heard that the king took away anything from you but the captainship of the guard, which he did with very good reason, to have one of his own knowledge whom he * State Trials, 29. 368 ENGLISH SEAMEN might trust in that place. Again, for monopolies of wine, etc., if the king had said, it is a mattei that offends my people ; should I burden them for your private good ? I think you could not well take it hardly that his subjects were eased, though by your private hindrance. Two vices have lodged chiefly in you; one is aii eager ambition, the other corrupt covetousness ; ambition in desiring to be advanced to equal grace and favour as you have been before time : that grace you had then you got not in a day or year. For your covetousness, I am sorry to hear that a gentleman of your wealth should become a base spy for the enemy, wherein on my conscience Cobham hath said true ; by it you would have increased your living 1500/. a year. This covetousness is like a canker that eats the iron place where it lives. Your case being thus, let it not grieve you if I speak a little out of zeal and love to your good. You have been taxed by the world with the defence of the most heathenish and blasphemous opinions ; which I list not to repeat, because Christian ears cannot en- dure to hear them, nor the authors and maintainers of them be suffered to live in any Christian commonwealth. You shall do well before you go out of the world to give satisfaction therein, and not to die with these imputations on you. Let not any devil persuade you to think there is no eternity in heaven ; for if you think thus, you shall find eternity in hell- fire. In the first accusation of my Lord Cobham, I observed his manner of speaking ; I protest before the living God I am persuaded he spoke nothing but the truth. You wrote that he should not in any case confess anything to a preacher, tell- ing him an example of my Lord of Essex, who, if he had not been carried away with others, had lived in honour to this day among us. He confessed his offences, and obtained mercy of the Lord, for I am verily persuaded in my heart he died a worthy servant of God. Your conceit of not confessing any- thing is very inhuman and wicked. In this world is the time of confessing, that we may be absolved at the day of judgment. You have shown a fearful sign of denying God in advising a man not to confess the truth. It now comes in my mind why you may not have your accuser come face to face ; for such an one is easily brought to retract when he seeth there is no hope of his own life. It is dangerous that any traitors should have access to or conference with one another ; when they see themselves must die, they will think it best to have their fellow live, that SIR WALTER RALEIGH 369 he may commit the like treason again, and so in some sort seek revenge. Now it resteth to pronounce the judgment, which I wish you had not been this day to have received of me : for if the fear of God in you had been answerable to your other great parts, you might have lived to have been a singular good subject. I never saw the like trial, and hope I shall never see the like again." Sentence was then pronounced according to the abominable law which was then in use. Sir Walter besought Mountjoy and the other lords to be suitors that, in regard to the places of estimation which he had held, the rigour of his judgment might be qualified, and his death be honourable, not igno- minious.* They promised him to do their utmost endeavours. He requested also, it is said, that if there were no hope of pardon, Cobham might die first ; the motive for such a request might be supposed to have been a hope that Cobham at his death would say something to exculpate him ; or, more consistently with Raleigh's character, a device to make men think so, and believe his protestations of innocence. He had, indeed, answered upon his trial " with that temper, art, learning, courage, and judgment, that, save that it went with the hazard of his life (so says Sir Dudley Carleton), it was the happiest day that ever he spent. And so well he shifted all advantages that were taken against him, that, were not Jama malum gravius quam res and an ill name half hanged in the opinion of all men, he had been acquitted." One who brought the news of his condemnation to the king affirmed that never any man spoke so well in times past, nor would do in the world to come. And a Scotchman said to James, that whereas when he saw him first he was so led with the common hatred, that he would have gone an hundred miles to have seen him hanged, he would ere he parted have gone a thousand to have saved his life.-j* A few days afterwards Cobham was brought to trial, "and made," says Carleton, " such a fasting-day's piece of work of it, that he discredited the place to which he was called ; never was seen so poor and abject a spirit ". He exclaimed against Raleigh as one that had stirred him up to discontent; and he charged him with having propounded a scheme for the Spaniards to invade England, by collecting a force at CoruSa * State Trials, 30, 31. f Cayley, ii., I2. 24 370 ENGLISH SEAMEN ostensibly for the Low Countries, and landing it at Milford Haven. Raleigh had made himself a pensioner to Spain, he said, for 1500 crowns a year to give intelligence; and as an earnest of his diligence had communicated to Aremberg the particulars of what had passed in the State audiences at Green- wich. Being questioned concerning the two letters, in one of which he had excused Raleigh, and in the other charged him, he said the former had been drawn from him in the Tower by the lieutenant's son, whom Raleigh had corrupted ; but that the latter was true. His brother's confession was read against him, accusing him of having bargained with Aremberg for 500,000 crowns to bestow among malcontents ; and when he excepted against his brother's testimony, baptising him with the name of a viper, a letter of his own to Aremberg was produced, asking for so much money ; and Aremberg's answer, consenting to furnish such a sum. Having accused all his friends without any success in excusing himself, the peers were not long in condemning him ; and he then begged a great while for life and favour, alleging his confession as a meritorious act.* Lord Grey, quite in another key, began with great assurance and alacrity, and maintained that key through the whole trial. He made a long and eloquent speech, and held the court "from eight in the morning till eight at night in subtle traverses and scapes ; but the evidence was too conspicuous, both by Brooke's and Markham's confessions, that he was acquainted with the project of seizing the king's person. Yet Carleton says the judges were long ere they could all agree, and loath to come out with so hard a censure against him. For though he had some heavy enemies, as his old antagonist,-]- who were mute before his face, but spake within very unnobly against him ; yet most of them strove with themselves, and would fain, as it seemed, have dispensed with their consciences to have showed him favour. At the pro- nouncing of the opinion of the lords, and the demand whether he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be given against him, these only were his words, ' I have nothing to say ' : — then he paused long, — ' and yet a sentence of Tacitus comes in my mind, non eadem omnihus decora. The house of the Wiltons had spent many lives in their prince's * Cayley, 14, 15. f Southampton ? SIR WALTER RALEIGH 371 service, and Grey cannot beg his. God send the king a long and prosperous reign, and to your lordships all honour ! ' There was great compassion had of this gallant young lord, for so clear and fiery a spirit had not been seen by any that had been present at like trials. Yet the lord steward con- demned his manner much, terming it Lucifer's pride, and preached much humiliation ; and the judges liked him as little, because he disputed with them against their laws." * Grey, after his sentence, desired that Tracers might be sent for to him, a Puritan divine, well known as the antagonist of Hooker, — if any one who was opposed to Hooker can be said to be well known ; but if there were not time for this, he named another minister of the same persuasion, with whom he employed the interval in great devotion ; " but with that careless regard of expected death, that he was observed neither to eat nor sleep the worse, or be anywise distracted from his accustomed fashion ". The Bishops of Chichester and Winchester were sent by the king's express order to Cobham and Raleigh, as well to prepare them for their ends, as to bring them to liberal confession, and thereby reconcile the contradictions of the one's open accusation, and the other's peremptory denial. The Bishop of Chichester had an easy charge, " finding in Cobham a willingness to die, and readiness to die well, with purpose at his death to affirm as much as he had said against Raleigh ". But the other bishop found Raleigh, though " well settled for his conscience, and resolved to die a Christian and a good Protestant, yet for the point of confession so straitlaced, that he would yield to no part of Cobham's accusation ; only," he said, 'Hhe pension was once mentioned, but never proceeded in".j- Raleigh, indeed, was never wanting in presence of mind ; on no occasion did he ever, by any precipitancy or imprudence, betray himself. He is described as,- after his condemnation, accompanying the sheriff to prison " with admirable erection, yet in such sort as a condemned man should do " ; and with such erection, and yet in such sort, he addressed the following letter to the king:— "The life which I had, most mighty prince, the law hath taken from me, and I am now but the same earth and dust out of which I was first framed. If my offences had any •Cayley, 15, i6. ilbid.^ig. S72 ENGLISH SEAMEN proportion with your majesty's mercy, I should not despair ; or if my crime had any quantity with your majesty's un- measurable goodness, I might yet have hope — but it is your great majesty that must judge of both, and not I. Blood, name, gentry, or estate, have I now none : no, not so much as a being; no, not so much as vita plantce. I have only a penitent soul in a body of iron, which moveth toward the loadstone of death, and cannot be withheld from touching it, except your majesty's mercy turn the point toward me which repelleth. Lost I am for hearing a vain man, — for hearing only, and never believing or approving. And so little account I made of that speech of his which was my condemna- tion (as the living God doth truly witness !) that I never remembered any such thing, till it was at my trial objected against me. So did he repay my care, who cared to make Him good ; which (now too late) I see no care of man can effect ! "But God, for mine offences toward Him, hath laid this heavy burthen upon me, miserable and unfortunate wretch that I am! But not for loving you, my sovereign, hath God laid this sorrow on me. For He knoweth, with whom I may not dissemble, that I honoured your majesty by fame, and loved and admired you by knowledge. So, whether I live or die, your majesty's true and loving servant and loyal subject I will live and die. " If I now write what doth not become me, most merciful prince, vouchsafe to ascribe it to the counsel of a dead heart, and to a mind which sorrow hath broken and confounded. But the more my misery is, the more is your majesty's mercy if you please to behold it ; and the less I can deserve, the more liberal your majesty's gift shall be. God only shall imitate your majesty herein, both in giving freely, and by giving to such a one as from whom there can be no retribution, but only a design to repay a lent life with the same great love which the same great goodness shall please to bestow it. "This being the first letter that ever your majesty received from a dead man, I humbly submit myself to the will of my supreme lord, and shall willingly and patiently suffer whatso- ever it shall please your majesty to impose upon me. "Walter Raleigh." SIR WALTER RALEIGH 373 No man ever asked for life with more dignified submission to his fortune. And the letter which he wrote at this time with the likelihood (if not the expectation) of being speedily brought to execution, was in a more touching but not less becoming strain. "You shall now receive, my dear wife, my last words in these my last lines ! My love I send you, that you may keep it when I am dead ; and my counsel, that you may remember it when I am no more. I would not, by my will, present you with sorrows, dear Bess, — let them go into the 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 myself. " First, I send you all the thanks which my heart can conceive, or my words can express, for your many travails and care taken for me ; which, though they have not taken effect as you wished, yet my debt to you is not the less. But pay it I never shall in this world. " Secondly, I beseech you, for the love you bear me living, do not hide yourself many days after my death. But, by your travails, seek to help your miserable fortunes, and the right of your poor child. Thy mournings cannot avail me : I am but dust. " Thirdly, You shall understand that my land was conveyed bond fide to my child. The writings were drawn at Midsummer was twelvemonths. My honest cousin, Brett, can testify so much ; and Dalberrie, too, can remember somewhat therein ; and I trust my blood will quench their malice that have thus cruelly murdered me, and that they will not seek also to kill thee and thine with extreme poverty. To what friend to direct thee I know not ; for all mine have left me in the true time of trial, and I plainly perceive that my death was determined from the first day. Most sorry I am, God knows, that being thus surprised with death, 1 can leave you in no better estate. God is my witness I meant you all my office of wines, or all that I could have purchased by selling it; half my stuff; and all my jewels, but some one for the boy. But God hath prevented all my resolutions, even that great God that ruleth all in all. But if you can live free from want, care for no more ; the rest is but vanity. Love God, and begin betimes to repose yourself on him, and therein shall you find true and lasting riches, and endless comfort. 374 ENGLISH SEAMEN For the rest, when you have travailed, and wearied your thoughts over all sorts of worldly cogitation, you shall but sit down by sorrow in the end. Teach your son also to love and fear God, while he is yet young, that the fear of God may grow up with him. And then God will be a husband to you, and a father to him ; a husband and a father which cannot be taken from you. " Bayly oweth me 200/., and Adrian Gilbert 600/. In Jersey, also, I have much money owing me. Beside, the arrearages of the wines will pay my debts ; and howsoever you do, for my soul's sake pay all poor men. "When I am gone, no doubt, you shall be sought to by many, for the world thinks that I was very rich. But take heed of the pretences of men and their affections, for they last not, but in honest and worthy men ; and no greater misery can befall you in this life, than to become a prey, and afterward to be despised. I speak not this, God knows, to dissuade you from marriage ; for it will be best for you both in respect of the world and of God. As for me, I am no more yours, nor you mine. Death has cut us asunder ; and God hath divided me from the world, and you from me. " Remember your poor child, for his father's sake, who chose you and loved you in his happiest time. Get those letters, if it be possible, which I writ to the lords, wherein I sued for my life. God is my witness, it was for you and yours that I desired life. But it is true that I disdain myself for begging it ; for, know it, dear wife, that your son is the son of a true man, and one who, in his own respect, despiseth death, and all his misshapen and ugly forms. "I cannot write much. God He knoweth how hardly I steal this time while others sleep. And it is also high time that I should separate my thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, which living was denied thee ; and either lay it at Sherborne, if the land continue, or in Exeter Church, by my father and mother. I can say no more, — time and death call me away. "The everlasting, powerful, infinite, and omnipotent God, who is goodness itself, the true life and true light, keep thee and thine, have mercy on me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors and accusers, and send us to meet in his glorious kingdom ! My dear wife, farewell ! Bless my poor boy, pray for me ; and let my good God hold you both in His arms ! SIR WALTER RALEIGH 3T5 ''Written with the dying hand of sometime thy husband, but now, alas ! overthrown, " Yours that was, but now not my own, "Walter Raleigh/' The two priests were the first who were brought to execu- tion, and they died boldly both ; Watson willingly, as re- pentantly, " wishing he had more lives to spend, and one to lose for every man whom he had drawn into this treason". The other stood somewhat upon his justification, and com- plained of hard measure, but imputed it to his function, and therefore thought his death meritorious as a kind of martyrdom. They were cruelly dealt with by a bungling or brutal execu- tioner. Their quarters were set on Winchester gate, and their heads on one of the castle towers. Six days afterwards, Brookes, upon receiving the sacrament, recalled the accusation which he had made against Cobham, of saying "it would never be well until the fox and cubs were taken away " ; but for the rest wherewith he had charged Cobham and Grey, he constantly persisted therein, and died penitently. Meantime "there was no small doings at court" concerning the other condemned persons, — " for life or death ; some pushing at the wheel one way, some another. The lords of the council joined in opinion and advice to the king, now in the beginning of his reign to show as well examples of mercy as severity, and to gain the title of Clemens as well as Justus. But some others, led by their private spleen and passions, drew as hard the other way ; and Patrick Galloway, in a sermon preached so hotly against remissness and moderation of justice in the head of justice, as if it were one of the seven deadly sins. The king held himself upright betwixt two waters ; and first let the lords know that since the law had passed upon the prisoners, and that they themselves had been their judges, it became not them to be petitioners for that, but rather to press for execution of their own ordinances ; and to others he gave as good reasons, — let them know that he would go no whit the faster for their driving, but would be led as his own judgment and affections would move him, but seemed rather to lean to this side than the other, by the care he took to have the law take its course. " * * Sir Dudley Carleton. Cayley, 17, 20. 376 ENGLISH SEAMEN Warrants were signed for Markham, Grey, and Cobham, who were to take their turns in that order, on the fourth day after Brooke's execution. ^'A fouler day/' says Sir Dudley Carleton, who was one of the spectators, " could hardly have been picked out, or fitter for such a tragedy. Markham, being brought to the scaffold, was much dismayed, and com- plained much of his hard hap, to be deluded with hopes, and brought to that place unprepared (for though he had been told he was to die, yet, by secret message from some friends at court, such hope had been given him, that he would not believe the worst till the last day). One might see in his face the very picture of sorrow ; but he seemed not to want resolution ; for a napkin being offered by a friend that stood by, to cover his face, he threw it away, saying, he could look upon death without blushing. He took leave of some friends that stood near, and betook himself to his devotions, after his manner; and, those ended, prepared himself to the block. Meantime the sheriff was secretly withdrawii by one John Gib, a Scotch groom of the bedchamber ; * whereupon the execution was stayed, and Markham left upon the scaffold to entertain his own thoughts, which no doubt were as melan- choly as his countenance sad and heavy. The sheriff, at his return, told him that since he was so ill prepared, he should yet have two hours' respite ; so led him from the scaffold without giving him any more comfort, and locked him into the great hall, to walk with Prince Arthur, f ''The Lord Grey, whose turn was next, was led to the scaffold by a troop of the young courtiers, and was supported on both sides by two of his best friends ; and, coming in this equipage, had such gaiety and cheer in his countenance, that he seemed a dapper young bridegroom. At his first coming on the scaffold he fell on his knees, and his preacher made a long prayer to the present purpose, which he seconded himself with one of his own making ; which, for the phrase, was some- * " John Gib could not get so near the scaffold that he could speak to the sheriff, but was thrust out among the boys, and was forced to call out to Sir James Hayes, or else Markham might have lost his neck" (Cayley, 25). Another thing had liked to have marred the play, for the king's letter was dated and delivered to the messenger unsigned, which the king re- membered himself, and called for him back again. + Cayley, 21. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 377 what affected, and suited to his other speeches ; but, for the fashion, expressed the fervency and zeal of a religious spirit. In his confession, he said, though God knew this fault of his was far from the greatest, yet he knew and could not but acknowledge his heart to be faulty, for which he asked pardon of the king ; and thereupon entered upon a long prayer for the king's good estate, which held us in the rain," says this beholder, " more than half an hour. But being come to a full point, the sheriff stayed him, and said he had received orders from the king to change the order of the execution, and that the Lord Cobham was to go before him. Whereupon he was likewise led to Prince Arthur's hall ; and his going away seemed more strange unto him than his coming thither ; for he had no more hope given him than of an hour's respite, neither could any man yet dive into the mystery of this strange proceeding.* "The Lord Cobham, who was now to play his part, and, by his former actions, promised nothing but maliere pour rire, did much cozen the world, for he came to the scaffold with good assurance and contempt of death. He said some short prayers after his minister, and so out-prayed the company that helped to pray with him, that a stander-by said, * he had a good mouth in a cry, but was nothing single'. Some few words he used to express his sorrow for his offence to the king, and craved pardon of him and the world. For Sir Walter Raleigh, he took it upon the hope of his soul's resurrection, that what he had said of him was true ; and, with those words, would have taken a short farewell of the world, with that constancy and boldness that we might see by him it is an easier matter to die well than live well. He was stayed by the sheriff, and told that there rested yet somewhat else to be done, for that he was to be confronted with some other of the prisoners, but named none. So as Grey and Markham, being brought back to the scaffold as they then were, but nothing acquainted with what had passed, no more than the lookers- on with what should follow, looked strange one upon the other, like men beheaded and met again in the other world. Now all the actors being together on the stage (as use is at the end of a play), the sheriff made a short speech unto them, by way of interrogatory of the heinousness of their offences, the just- * Cay ley, 21, 22. S78 ENGLISH SEAMEN ness of their trials, their lawful condemnation, and due execu- tion there to be performed, to all which they assented. ' Then ' saith the sheriff, ' see the mercy of your prince, who of himself hath sent hither a countermand, and given you your lives ! ' There was then no need to beg a plaudite of the audience, for it was given with such hues and cries that it went from the castle into the town, and there began afresh, as if there had been some such-like accident. And this ex- perience was made of the difference of examples of justice and mercy, that, in this last, no man could cry loud enough, ' God save the king ! ' and, at the holding up of Brooke's head, when the executioner began the same cry, he was not seconded by the voice of any one man but the sheriff. You must think, if the spectators were so glad, the actors were not sorry ; for even those that went best resolved to death, were glad of life. Cobham vowed openly, if ever he proved traitor again, never so much as to beg his life ; and Grey, that since he had his life without begging, he would deserve it. Markham returned with a merrier countenance than he came to the scaffold.* '^ Raleigh, you must think (who had a window opened that way), had hammers working in his head to beat out the meaning of this stratagem. His turn was to come on Monday next ; but the king has pardoned him with the rest, and confined him with the two lords to the Tower of London, there to remain during pleasure. Markham, Brookesby, and Copley, are to be banished the realm. This resolution was taken by the king without man's help, and no man can rob him of the praise of yesterday's action ; for the lords knew no other but that execution was to go forward, till the very hour it should be performed ; and then, calling them before him, he told them how much he had been troubled to resolve in this business : for to execute Grey, who was a noble, young, spirited fellow, and save Cobham, who was as base and unworthy, were a matter of injustice. To save Grey, who was of a proud, insolent nature, and execute Cobham, who had showed great tokens of humility and repentance, were as great a solecism ; and so went on with Plutarch's comparisons in the rest, still travelling in contrarieties, but holding the conclusion in so indifferent balance that the lords knew not * Cayley, 22, 24. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 379 what to look for till the end came out, 'And, therefore, I have saved them all '. The miracle was as great there as with us at Winchester, and it took like effect ; for the applause that began about the king went from thence into the presence, and so round about the court. " * Raleigh was removed to the Tower a few days after this memorable scene. There he was allowed to live as in liberd custodid ; and his goods and chattels, forfeited by the attainder, were granted to trustees named by himself, for the benefit of his family and creditors. This grant, it was said in the deed, was made as well in consideration that all the debts and duties which he did truly and bond ^fide owe before his conviction might be justly and truly paid, as for the help and maintenance of Dame Elizabeth his wife, his child and family. Thus far James had dealt generously, as well as mercifully, toward one of whose treasonable prac- tices no doubt was entertained by his contemporaries. He granted him also his life interest in the Sherborne estate, which had been settled upon his eldest son : but a flaw was discovered in Sir Walter's conveyance ; and Car, the king's favourite, afterwards known as the infamous Earl of Somerset, took advantage of this, and begged the estate. Upon this occasion Raleigh addressed a letter to the favourite in becom- ing terms. — "Sir," it said, "after some great losses, and many years' sorrows (of both which, I have cause to fear, I was mistaken in the end), it is come to my knowledge that yourself, whom I know not but by an honourable fame, hath been persuaded to give me and mine our last fatal blow, by obtaining from His Majesty the inheritance of my children and nephews, lost in the law for want of a word. 'This done, there remaineth nothing with me but the name of life, despoiled of all else but the title and sorrow thereof. His Majesty, whom I never offended (for I hold it unnatural and unmanlike to hate goodness), stayed me at the grave's brink ; not, as I hope, that he thought me worthy of many deaths, and to behold all mine cast out of the world with myself, but as a king who, judging the poor in truth, hath received a * " James reaped the full fruit of this device. The existence of the plot was proved by the confessions made on the scaffold, the guilt of Raleigh could no longer be doubted after the solemn asseveration of Cobham, and the royal ingenuity as well as clemency was universally applauded" (Lingard, ix., 25). 380 ENGLISH SEAMEN promise from God that his throne shall be established for ever. And for yourself, sir, 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 favours and much honour, 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. I have been ever bound to your nation, as well for many other graces, as for the true report of my trial to the king's majesty ; against whom, had I been found malignant, the hearing of my cause would not have changed enemies into friends, malice into compassion, and the minds of the greatest number then present into the commiseration of mine estate. It is not the nature of foul treason to beget such fair passions ; neither could it agree with the duty and love of faithful subjects (especially of your nation), to bewail his overthrow who had conspired against their most natural and liberal lord. I therefore trust, sir, that you will not be the first that shall kill me outright, cut down the tree with the fruit, and undergo the curse of them that enter the fields of the fatherless ; which, if it please you to know the truth, is far less in value than in fame : but that so worthy a gentlemen as yourself will rather bind us to you, being, sir, gentleman not base in birth and alliance who have interest therein ; and myself, with my uttermost thankfulness, will ever remain ready to obey your commands. "Walter Raleigh." The minion who could ask for lands under such circum- stances was not likely to be moved by any appeal to his sense of justice, honour, or humanity. And when Dame Elizabeth, with her children, humbly and earnestly petitioned the king for compassion on her and hers, she could obtain no other answer than that ''he mun have the land, he mun have it for Car ". "Whereupon she," says her son, "being a woman of a very high spirit, and noble birth and breeding, fell down upon her knees, with her hands heaved up to heaven, and, in the bitterness of spirit, beseeched God Almighty to look upon the justness of her cause, and punish those who had so wrongfully exposed her and her poor children to ruin and beggary." James, however, was not without some compunction ; and he gave Dame Elizabeth and her elder son 8000/., which he called a competent satisfaction. This Sherborne estate, ill gotten SIR WALTER RALEIGH 881 by Sir Walter, and worse by Car, did not pass immediately from one to the otlier. Prince Henry, hearing for whom it was designed, " came with some anger to his father, desiring he would be pleased to bestow Sherborne upon him ; alleging that it was a place of great strength and beauty, which he much liked, but, indeed, with an intention of giving it back to Raleigh ". The king granted his son's request, and com- pounded with the favourite by giving him, with his wonted and scandalous profusion in such cases, 25,000/. Prince Henry died within a few months, and Car then obtained the estates in addition to the money. Upon his disgrace and condemnation they were given to Sir John Digby ; and the ill fortune which was supposed to go with this portion of the Church's plundered property, then passed away. * * Carew Raleigh's Brief Relation of Sir Walter's Troubles, etc. This relation is contained in a petition to the commons during the time of the Great Rebellion. When he relates his mother's imprecation, the writer observes, " What hath happened since to that royal family is too sad and disastrous for me to repeat, and yet too visible not to be discerned ". He makes no mention of the 8000/. In speaking of Prince Henry's applica- tion for Sherborne, he says the king was " unwilling to refuse any of that prince's desires, for indeed they were most commonly delivered in such language as sounded rather like a demand than an entreaty ". He accredits the groundless suspicion that the prince was poisoned ; and he relates a circumstance, which, if it may be received on his single testimony, cannot but be deemed dishonourable in Charles I. Having after James's death petitioned parliament to be restored in blood, his petition, he says, " having been twice read in the lords' house. King Charles sent Sir James Fullerton (then of the bedchamber) unto Mr. Raleigh, to command him to come unto him; and being brought into the king's chamber by the said Sir James, the king, after using him with great civility, notwithstanding told him plainly, that when he was prince he had promised the Earl of Bristol to secure his title to Sherborne, against the heirs of Sir Walter Raleigh ; whereupon the earl had given him, then prince, 10,000/. ; that now he was bound to make good his promise, being king, and therefore, unless he would quit all his right and title to Sherborne, he neither could nor would pass his bill of restoration. Mr. Raleigh urged the justness of his cause ; that he desired only the liberty of a subject, and to be left to the law, which was never denied any freeman : notwithstanding all which allega- tions, the king was resolute in his denial, and so left him. After which Sir James Fullerton used many arguments to persuade submission to the king's will : as the impossibility of contesting with kingly power ; the not being restored in blood, which brought along with it so many incon- veniences, that it was not possible without it to possess or enjoy any lands or estate in this kingdom ; the not being in a condition, if his cloak were taken from his back, or hat from his head, to sue for restitution. All which things being considered, together with splendid promises of great preferment in court, and particular favours from the king not improbable. 382 ENGLISH SEAMEN Prince Henry held so high an opinion of Raleigh as to say of him, " no king but my father would keep such a bird in a cage ". Raleigh would not have said with the gallant Lovelace, " Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ; " neither was his mind, though philosophical, 'innocent and quiet " enough to take his prison for an hermitage. Yet the years which he passed in the Tower were the best employed of his life, and the better part of his fame rests upon the works which he produced during this compulsory seclusion. There he wrote his observations on the royal navy and sea-service, which he dedicated to Prince Henry; there he addressed a letter to that prince touching the model of a ship which the prince intended to build ; there he composed his various political discourses ; and there he compiled that History of the World, of which, though some of the best wits in England (Ben Jonson among them) assisted him with their researches, the design and spirit were his own, and those sagacious remarks and eloquent passages which give it its great and peculiar value. There too he amused himself with chemistry, and the study of medicine. Sir Walter Raleigh's cordial was long esteemed a precious remedy : * it consisted of every ingredient to which wrought much in the mind of young Mr. Raleigh, being a person not full twenty years old, left friendless and fortuneless, and prevailed so far that he submitted to the king's will. Whereupon there was an act passed for his restoration ; together with it a settlement of Sherborne to the Earl of Bristol ; and in show of some kind of recompense 400/. a year pension, during his Hfe, granted to Mr. Raleigh, afterjthe death of his mother, who had that sum paid unto her during life, in lieu of jointure." Carew Raleigh concludes by recommending himself to the parliament, as " having in his own person (though bred at court) never opposed any of their just rights and privileges, and for the future being resolved to range himself under the banner of the commons of England ; and so far forth as education and fatherly instruction can prevail, promising the same for two sons whom God had sent him". * Evelyn, in his Diary (1662), says, " I accompanied his majesty to Monsieur Febure, his chymist (and who had formerly been my master in Paris), to see his accurate preparation for the composing Sir Walter Raleigh's rare cordial: he made a learned discourse before his majesty in French on each ingredient ". Le Febure afterwards published his Discours sur U Grand Cordial de Sir Walter Raleigh, 1665. A MS. of chemical processes by Sir Walter is in the British Museum (Cayley, ii., 46). SIR WALTER RALEIGH 383 any cordial virtues were imputed. By this medicine Queen Anne is said to have been restored from a " desperate, and, as some believed, an incurable disease, whereof the physicians were at the furthest end of their studies to find the cause, at a nonplus for the cure". The queen, in consequence, sent for some of this cordial for Prince Henry m his last illness. * It was the subject of some deliberation whether it should be administered ; but after having been tasted and proved, the lords of the council consented to advise that it should be given. It failed, as any other remedy must have failed, of curing an incurable disease. But a boastful expression of Sir Walter in a letter which he sent with it, telling the queen that it would certainly cure any one of a fever except in case of poison, is said to have confirmed her in the erroneous and miserable opinion that her beloved son had had foul play, -f- Raleigh continued more than twelve years in the Tower. His wife soon obtained permission to reside there with him ; they had their own attendants, and certain persons | were permitted to repair to him at convenient times. There seems to have been no restriction as to his visitors at a later time. Sir William Wade, the lieutenant of the Tower, describes him as seeming to be very well satisfied with his treatment ; " the door of the chamber," he says, " being always open all the day 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." After Somerset's disgrace, he had what is called the liberty of the Tower allowed him ; after Cecil's death, no person in authority was likely to oppose his applica- tion for enlargement ; but with the hope of liberty his fatal ambition of rivalling Cortes and Pizarro revived. § Money and solicitations were now employed to the utmost of Sir Walter's means ; but in soliciting his liberty and renew- ing his proposals for the conquest of the rich and golden empire, he asserted with great discretion as well as boldness, his perfect innocence of the offence for which he was under condemnation. "Honoured sir/' said he, in a letter to the * Sir Anthony Weldon. f Welwood. Cayley, ii., 53. J These were Gilbert Hawthorn a preacher, Dr. Turner, Dr. John a surgeon, John Shelberry, Thomas Harriot, and his steward of Sherborne (Cayley ii., 38, from the Hatfield Papers). 8Cayley,ii.,38. 384 ENGLISH SEAMEN secretary of state. Sir Ralph Winwood, "I was lately per- suaded by two gentlemen, my ancient friends, to acquaint your honour with some offers of mine, made heretofore for a journey to Guiana, who were of opinion that it would be better understood now, than when it was first propounded ; which advice having surmounted my despair, I have presumed to send unto your honour the copies of those letters which I then wrote, both to His Majesty, and to the treasurer, Cecil ; where- in, as well the reasons that first moved me are remembered, as the objections by him made are briefly answered. What I know of the riches of that place, not by hearsay, but what mine eyes have seen, I have said it often ; but it was then to no end, because those that had the greatest trust were resolved not to believe it, not because they doubted the truth, but because they doubted my disposition toward themselves, where, if God had blessed me in the enterprise, I had recovered His Majesty's favour and good opinion. Other cause than this, or other suspicion, they never had any." He then entered dexterously upon his own exculpation. " Our late worthy Prince of Wales," said he, " was extreme curious in searching out the nature of my offences. The queen's majesty hath informed herself from the beginning. The King of Denmark, at both times of his being here, was thoroughly satisfied of my innocency: they would otherwise never have moved His Majesty on my behalf. The wife, the brother, and the son of a king, do not use to sue for men suspect. But, sir, since they all have done it out of their charity, and but with reference to me alone, your honour, whose respect hath only relation to His Majesty's service, and strengthened by the example of those princes, may with the more hardiness do the like, being princes to whom His Majesty's good estate is no less^dear, and all men that shall oppugn it no less hateful, than to the king himself " It is true, sir, that His Majesty hath sometimes answered, that his council knew me better than he did ; meaning some two or three of them. And it was, indeed, my infelicity. For, had His Majesty known me, I had never been here where I now am ; or, had I known His Majesty, they had never been so long there where they now are. His Majesty's not knowing of me hath been my ruin ; and His Majesty's mis- knowing of them hath been the ruin of a goodly part of his estate. But they are all of them now, some living and some SIR WALTER RALEIGH 385 dying, come to His Majesty's knowledge. But, sir, how little soever His Majesty knew me, and how much soever he believed them, yet have I been bound to His Majesty both for my life, and all that remains ; of which, but for His Majesty, nor life, nor aught else, had remained. In this respect, sir, f am bound to yield up the same life, and all I have, for His Majesty's service. To die for the king, and not by the king, is all the ambition I have in the world. " Walter Raleigh. " * The secretary was not unfavourably disposed to Raleigh ; but the successful issue of this application appears to have been obtained by the rising favourite, Villiers, through the means of his uncle. Sir Edward Villiers, and of Sir William St. John. They received, for their influence, a present of 1 500/. The favourite had, for himself, a promise contingent upon the event of the enterprise. "You have, by your mediation," Raleigh writes to him, " put me again into the world. I can but acknowledge it ; for to pay any part of your favour by any service of mine, as yet it is not in my power. If it succeed well, a good part of the honour shall be yours ; and if I do not also make it profitable unto you, I shall show myself exceeding ungrateful. In the meanwhile, and till God discover the success, I beseech you to reckon me among the number of your faithful servants, though the least able." f Without the interference of Villiers, Winwood's recommendation of the adventure " as a matter not in the air, or speculative, but real and of certainty, for that Sir Walter had seen of the ore of the mine with his eyes, and tried the richness of it," might have weighed little with so cautious a king as James. The special declaration which was afterwards put forth, of the king's true motives and inducements, says, "It is true that His Majesty, in his own princely judgment, gave no belief unto it ; as well for that His Majesty was verily persuaded, that in nature there are no such mines of gold entire as they described this to be, and if any such had been, it was not probable that the Spaniards, who were so industrious in the chase of treasure, would have neglected it so long, as also for that it proceeded from the person of Sir Walter Raleigh, invested with such circumstances both of his disposition and * Cayley, ii., 58-60. f Ibid., 56. 25 386 ENGLISH SEAMEN fortune. But nevertheless Sir Walter Raleigh had so en- chanted the world with his confident asseveration of that which every man was willing to believe, as His Majesty's honour was in a manner engaged not to deny unto his people the adven- ture and hope of so great riches, to be sought and achieved at the charge of voluntaries ; especially for that it stood with His Majesty's politic and magnanimous courses in these his flourishing times of peace to nourish and encourage noble and generous enterprises for plantations, discoveries, and opening of new trades." Accordingly, a royal warrant was issued to the lieutenant of the Tower, stating that "whereas Sir Walter had been a humble suitor for leave to undertake a voyage by sea upon his own costs and charges, to which request the king had been graciously pleased to condescend, the lieutenant was enjoined to let him go abroad with such a keeper as he should appoint, either in London or elsewhere, to the end that he might by that freedom the more conveniently furnish himself with shipping, and other necessary provisions for that voyage ".* It was no secret that these preparations were for Guiana ; and jealous as the Spaniards ever were of their pretensions as well as possessions in America, probably they would not have re- monstrated against the proposed expedition any more than against a recent one under Harcourt to the same part of that continent, if Raleigh had not in his account of the great and golden empire openly proclaimed his views of conquest. The Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, could have no doubt of Raleigh's designs ; which, indeed, were to be inferred both from the truths and the falsehoods of that relation. He represented therefore to the king, "by loud and vehement assertions upon iterated audiences, that he knew and had discovered the intention to be both hostile and piratical, and tending to the breach of the peace between the two crowns ". To which the king's answer always was, " That he would send Sir Walter Raleigh with a limited commission ; and that he durst not, upon peril of his head, attempt any such matters ; and that if he did he would surely do justice upon him, or send him bound hand and foot into Spain, and all the gold and goods he should obtain by robbery and bring home, were they never so great". For yet farther caution the king * Losely Manuscripts, p. 377. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 387 enjoined Winwood to urge Sir Walter upon his conscience and allegiance to deal plainly, and declare whether he had any other intention than to go to those golden mines in Guiana ; and Sir Walter not only solemnly protested thus to Winwood, "but by him wrote a close letter to His Majesty, containing a solemn profession thereof, confirmed with many vehement asseverations, and that he never meant or would commit any outrages or spoils upon the King of Spain's subjects". Such protestations were little likely to impose upon a statesman like Gondomar : he told James that the number of ships which had been prepared for the voyage showed manifestly that Raleigh had no such peaceable intent ; and upon Raleigh's answer, that these were only provided for his safe convoy, the ambassador offered, if Raleigh would go with one or two ships only to seek the said mine, that he would move the King of Spain to send two or three ships to convoy him safely home to England with all his gold, and would remain himself in pledge for the king his master's performance of this engagement.* The fleet, indeed, which Raleigh was fitting out might have awakened the suspicions of a less wary ambassador than Gondomar. Seven sail were equipped in the Thames, of which Raleigh's own ship, the Destiny, built at his own charge, and in which his son Walter went as captain, carried thirty-six guns and 200 men ; eighty of these were gentlemen volunteers and adventurers, many of them his relations. The Jason, Captain Pennington, carried twenty-five guns ; the Thufider, Sir Warham Saintleger, twenty ; the Encounter, Captain Hastings, seventeen ; the Flying Joan, Captain Chidley, fourteen. The other two were vessels of eighty tons and of twenty-five ; the one mounting six guns, the other three; and before this fleet left the English coast it was joined by four other ships, two fly-boats, and a caravel. Raleigh embarked all his means in this expedition : the 8000/. which James had given as some compensation for Sherborne, and which had been lent to the Countess of Bedford, was called in for this purpose ; and an estate of Dame Raleigh's, at Mitcham in Surrey, was sold, with her consent, for 2500/., and the purchase money applied to the same sinister enter- prise. This, however, was but a small part of the outlay ; * Declaration. Cayley, ii., 420. 388 ENGLISH SEAMEN about 15,000/. being embarked in it by persons whom his representations had deluded.* Raleigh says it was bruited, and by most men believed, that he meant nothing less than to go to Guiana ; but that, being once at liberty and in his own power, he would, having made his way with some foreign prince, turn pirate, and utterly forsake his country. f There was so little sincerity in his character, and his relation of Guiana contains so much falsehood, that his real intentions at this time must ever be matter of uncertainty. The desire of obtaining his deliver- ance from the Tower cannot have been his main motive ; for it is affirmed that St. John and Villiers offered for another sum of money | to procure not only his full pardon, but liberty not to go the voyage if he pleased. On this occasion it was that Lord Bacon, when Sir Walter acquainted him with the offer, and consulted him concerning it, is said to have replied, " Sir, the knee-timber of your voyage is money. Spare your purse in this particular ; for upon my life you have a sufficient pardon for all that is past already, the king having under his broad seal made you admiral of your fleet, and given you power of the martial law over your officers and soldiers." This was so reasonable an opinion that a more indifferent person than Raleigh might readily have concurred in it. But what he could have proposed to him- self from such an expedition can only be conjectured. It is utterly incredible that he should have obtained from the Indians any such account of El Dorado as he pretended to have heard from them : nevertheless he may have believed, as the Spaniards did, that there existed another golden empire " yet unspoiled," and have aspired to rival Cortes and Pizarro in renown. If this should prove only a dream of ambition (as his mind must sometimes have misgiven him), he may have calculated upon enriching himself by plundering the Spaniards, and purchasing indemnity with a part of the spoils in times when everything was venal. He deceived the king by concealing from him that the Spaniards had any footing in Guiana, and he deceived himself alike with regard to the • Cayley, ii., 85. Oldys, 192. fCayley, 84. X In the Observations on Sanderson's History, the sum named is 700/. Howell, on Carew Raleigh's authority, states it at 1500Z. ; and doubts whether Sir William St. John could have proceed the pardon, if he had come to negotiate it really. ^/^ * \r SIR WALTER RALEIGH 389 wealth of the Spaniards there, and to their weakness. And thus, deceiving and deceived, he began in unhappy hour his miserable voyage. After some vexatious loss of time at the Isle of Wight and at Plymouth, owing to the delay of some of his ships, and the difficulty which some of his captains felt in manning and provisioning others, for want of money, he encountered a strong storm some eight leagues to the westward of Scilly, in which the Flying Joan was sunk, and some of his fly-boats driven into Bristol ; and he put into Ireland, holding it, he says, "the office of a commander of many ships, and those of divers sailings and conditions (of which some could hull and try, and some of them beat it up upon a tack, and others neither able to do the one nor the other), rather to take a port and keep his fleet together, than either to endanger the loss of masts and yards, or to have it severed far asunder, and to be thrust into divers places ". There he stayed long, waiting for a good wind, a tarriance for which Raleigh was censured by some of his discontented followers ; " though they should have accused the clouds for it," he says, "and not him". At length he put again to sea, and, reaching the Canaries, landed his men upon the island of Lancerota. Ac- cording to Raleigh, the governor believed them to be a fleet of Turks who had lately taken and destroyed Puerto Santo : whether Turks or pirates, such a fleet and such a landing were alike to be feared by him. He proposed, however, to confer with the commander, each bringing one companion, with their rapiers only. Raleigh accepted the proposal ; and the result of the conference was an agreement that Sir Walter should send up an English factor, whose ship was then riding in the road, and that whatsoever the island could yield should be delivered to him at a reasonable rate. The factor was sent accordingly ; but the governor put off" from one morning to another the fulfilment of his engagement, and at length sent word that unless he would re-embark his men, the islanders would not venture to disperse and collect the re- quired provisions. Raleigh consented ; but when half the people were got aboard, two of his sentinels were forced, one slain, and the factor sent to tell him that they were still taken for Turks. " Hereupon all the companies would have marched toward the town, and have sacked it ; but I knew, " says Sir Walter, "it would only dislike His Majesty, for that our sgo ENGLISH SEAMEN merchants having a continual trade with those islands, their goods would have been stayed ; and among the rest, the poor Englishman riding in the road, having all that he brought thither ashore, would have been utterly ruined." Raleigh complained of this treatment to the Governor of Grand Canary, and desired leave to take in water there. No answer was returned ; and when he landed about an hundred men far from any habitation, in a desert part of the island, where some fresh water was found, he found an ambush laid there for him, and one of his people was wounded to death : more had been slain, had not his son, ''with a handful of brave men, and two or three exceeding valiant gentlemen, made head against them and put forty to flight". Still in want of water, he now sailed to Gomera, at that time one of the strongest and best defended places of all these islands, and the best port, the town being seated upon the very wash of the sea. There, at their first entrance, the ships were fired at, and returned the fire ; but as soon as Raleigh himself recovered the harbour, and had made the firing cease, he sent a Spaniard ashore to tell the governor he had no intention of making war upon the King of Spain's subjects ; and that if any harm were done to the town by the great ordnance, it was their fault, who, by shooting first, gave the occasion. The governor returned for answer, that he had fired supposing them to be the Turkish fleet ; and that if they wanted nothing but water, they might have as much as they pleased to take, if he were only assured that they would not attempt his town-houses, nor destroy the gardens and fruit. Raleigh in reply gave his faith and the word of the King of Great Britain, that the people should not lose so much as an orange or a grape ; and that if any man of his should injure them, he would hang him up in the market street. Here then a friendly intercourse was established ; presents * were exchanged with the governor s wife, who was of an English race ; and the governor, at their departure, wrote to the Spanish ambassador in England how Sir Walter had behaved himself in those islands. * They proved of great importance to him on his subsequent voyage. In the first letter to his wife, he says, " I received there, of an EngUsh race, a present of oranges, lemons, quinces, and pomegranates, v^^ithout which I could not have lived. Those I preserved in fresh sands, and I have of them yet, to my great refreshing." SIR WALTER RALEIGH 391 No other misfortune befell him in the Canaries than that Captain Bayley in the Southampton deserted him at Lancerota, and returning to England there did him all the wrong he could devise. But from that time one mishap succeeded another. At the isle of Bravo he lost his anchors, cables, and water casks, being driven off with a hurricane ; and in conse- quence they were like to have all perished. For between Cape de Verd and America, a passage then commonly per- formed in fifteen, or at most twenty days, they found the wind so contrary, and, " which (says he) are also contrary to Nature, so many storms and rains, that they spent six weeks, suffering from extreme heat and want of water : great numbers of his ablest men both for sea and land were carried off by sickness." * On 1 1th November they had sight of Guiana, and soon after anchored in the river Caliana, in five degrees. From thence Raleigh wrote to his wife a letter, which, dis- heartening as it was, was to her but the beginning of woes. " Sweetheart, I can write to you but with a weak hand, for I have suffered the most violent calenture for fifteen days that ever man did and lived. But God that gave me a strong heart in all my adventures, hath also now strengthened it in the hell-fire of heat. We have had two most grievous sicknesses in our ship, of which forty-two have died, and there are yet many sick ; but having recovered the land of Guiana this 12th day of November, I hope we shall recover them. We are yet 200 men, and the rest of our fleet are reasonably strong ; strong enough, I hope, to perform what we have undertaken, if the diligent care at London, to make our strength known to the Spanish king by his ambassador, have not taught the Spanish king to fortify all the entrances * He was blamed for sailing to Cape de Verd, knowing it to be an infectious place. "The truth is," he says, "that I came no nearer to Cape de Verd than Bravo, which is 150 leagues off. But had I taken it in my way, falling upon the coast, or any other part of Guiana, after the rains, there is as little danger of infection as in any other part of the world, as our English that trade in those parts every year do well know. There are few places in England, or in the world, near great rivers which run through low grounds, or near moorish or marsh grounds, but the people inhabiting near are, at some time of the year, subject to fevers. Witness Woolwich, in Kent, and all down the river on both sides. Other infection there is not found, either in Indies or in Africa, except it be when the easterly wind, or breezes, are kept off by some high mountains from the valleys, whereby the air, wanting motion, doth become exceeding unhealthful, as at Nombre de Dios, and elsewhere" (Cayley, ii., 93). 392 ENGLISH SEAMEN against us. Howsoever, we must make the adventure ; and if we perish, it shall be no honour for England, nor gain for His Majesty, to lose among many others an hundred as valiant gentlemen as England hath in it." Referring then to a letter of Keymis for an account of what they had suffered on the way from the unnatural weather, storms and rains and winds, and expressing his trust that God would give them comfort in what was to come, he proceeds to say, " Your son had never so good health, having no distemper in all the heat under the line. Remember my service to my Lord Carew and Mr. Secretary Winwood : I write not to them, for I can write of nought but miseries. Yet of men of sort, we have lost our sergeant-major. Captain Piggot and his lieutenant. Captain Edward Hastings (who would have died at home, for both his liver, spleen, and brains were rotten) ; my son's lieutenant Payton, and my cousin, Mr. Hews ; Mr. Mordant, Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Hayward, Captain Jenning, the merchant Keymis of London, and the master surgeon ; Mr. Refiner, Mr. Moor, the Governor of the Bermudas, our provost-martial William Steed, Lieutenant Vascie ; but to mine inestimable grief, Hammon and Talbot. By the next I trust you shall hear better of us. In God's hands we are, and in Him we trust. To tell you that I might be here king of the Indians were a vanity : but my name hath still lived among them here. They feed me with fresh meat, and all that the country yields : all offer to obey me. Commend me to poor Carew my son." * Here Sir Walter stayed till the 4th of December. Mean- time the sick were landed, the barges and shallops which had been brought out from England in quarters were set up, the ships washed, and fresh water taken in, the Indians of his old acquaintance feeding and cherishing them with a great deal of love and respect. "Myself," he says, "being in the hands of death these six weeks, and not able otherwise to move than as I was carried in a chair, gave orders to five small ships to sail into Orinoco, having Captain Keymis for their conductor toward the mines ; and in these five ships five companies of fifty, under the command of Captain Parker and Captain North, brethren to the Lord Mounteagle and the Lord North, valiant gentlemen, and of infinite patience for * Oldys, 20I. Cayley, ii., 66-68. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 393 the labour, hunger, and heat which they have endured. My son had the third company ; Captain Thomhurst of Kent the fourth ; Captain Chidley, by his lieutenant, the fifth. But as my sergeant-major. Captain Piggot of the Low Countries, died in the former miserable passage, so now my lieutenant. Sir Warham Saintleger, lay sick without hope of life, and the charge was conferred on my nephew, George Raleigh, who had also served long with infinite commendations, but by reason of my absence, and of Sir Warham's, was not so well obeyed as the enterprise required." With the other five ships Sir Walter repaired to Trinidad, no other port being capable of them near Guiana, and there he awaited the result of the expedition. * Berrio's son, D. Fernando de Berrio y Oruno, had, upon his father's death, inherited the government of Guiana, and of the countries between Pauto and Papamene : he had been displaced in consequence of complaints against him ; but having recently been reinstated, he was at this time prepar- ing in the Nuevo Reyno to re-enter upon his government, which was held meantime by Captain Diego Palameque de Acuna. f This officer had received despatches from the King of Spain, dated 19th March, l6l7, | advising him that one Walter Reali was fitting out six great ships and several smaller ones, with more than a thousand seamen and soldiers, for the Orinoco, and that five or six privateers in Holland were pre- paring to join him, their presumed purpose being to explore the country with a view to settling in it Palameque therefore was not surprised when he heard at the close of the year that the English fleet had appeared off Punta de Gallo, in Trinidad ; that the commander had landed some men at Puerto de * Oldys, 202. t Dr. Lingard says this officer was Gondomar's brother. :J: Raleigh obtained possession of this letter, and of the other despatches for levying forces to oppose him. '* For it pleased his majesty," he says, " to value us at so little, as to command me, upon my allegiance, to set down under my hand the country, and the very river by which I was to enter it ; to set down the number of my men, and burthen of my ships, and what ordnance every ship carried. Which being known to the Spanish ambassador, and by him sent to the King of Spain, a despatch was made and letters sent from Madrid before my departure out ot the Thames." Raleigh complains bitterly of this, and says, "There was never poor man so exposed to the slaughter as he was". Yet the truth is, that James acted in good faith towards his ally, the King of Spain. 394 ENGLISH SEAMEN Espana^ hoping to make himself master of St. Joseph de Oruno ; and that the lieutenant, Benito de Baena, who com- manded there, being in the port, and having frustrated his attempt and killed some of his people, had learnt from a prisoner that the commander's name was Raleigh. Farther he was informed that Raleigh had despatched two ships of 150 tons, a caravel, and five launches, with from six to seven hundred men, under his own son, up the river, against the city of St. Thomas, he himself remaining off Trinidad with six other vessels. * On the 12th of January, the English flotilla reached a part of the river called Yaya, twelve leagues from St. Thomas ; an Indian fisherman carried the alarm to that place. It could not be doubted that this was a hostile movement ; and Palameque, who, though forewarned of the danger, had not been provided with means for resisting it, mustered im- mediately the little force which he had at hand. This, accord- ing to the Spanish account, consisted of fifty-seven men, of whom more than a fourth part were invalids. He sent Juan de Trillo to collect those men who were at their farms (estancias) ; and he ordered two horsemen, Mateo Pinto de Olivera and Juan Ruyz Monge, to reconnoitre the invaders' movements. About eleven in the forenoon their sails were seen, making for the bay of Aruco, a league from the city ; there they anchored. The men from the launches landed, and Pinto hastened back with the intelligence. The ships and the caravel proceeded towards the port of the city ; and Juan Ruyz having waited at Aruco to see them disembark, brought tidings that they were marching toward the city, about 500 strong. -I* By this time Captain Jeronimo de Grados had come in from his estancia, and was placed in ambush, with ten soldiers, near the city. As soon as he was informed of the direction which the English were taking, he cut a match-cord in pieces, which he lighted, and placed at intervals, where they might deceive the invaders by presenting the appearance of a greater force. The first fire was from two petraries against the ships. Grados then opened his fire upon the troops, and kept it up * Pedro Simon, pp. 635-637. The Spanish account differs from Raleigh's brief statement in nothing of importance, except in overstating the number of men. t Pedro Simon, 637, 638. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 395 from the bushes as he retired before them. This skirmishing continued about an hour and half before he fell back to the place where the governor and his people awaited him ; and they drew up then at the entrance of the city, there to make a stand. It was now nine at night. * Raleigh says that some of the English, when they were charged by the governor and four or five captains who led their companies, began to pause and recoil shamefully; but that his son, f with extraordinary valour and forwardness, " not tarrying for any musketeers, ran up at the head of a company of pikemen, and received a shot wound " ; pressing then upon a Spanish captain, whom he calls Erinetta, with his sword, Erinetta, taking the small end of his musket in his hand, struck him on the head with the stock, and felled him. His last words were, "Lord, have mercy upon me, and prosper your enterprise ! " and his death was instantly revenged by his sergeant, John Plessington, who thrust the Spaniard through with his halbert. In the heat of fight, and in the confusion which the darkness occasioned, the governor was separated from his people and slain. The Spaniards, however, had the advantage of knowing the ground ; and betaking themselves to some houses adjoining the market- place, in which loopholes had been cut as soon as the alarm was given, from thence, with their murderers and muskets, they slew and wounded the English at their pleasure, till the assailants set fire to the houses. J Raleigh says they had no other way to save themselves ; and the Spaniards were consoled by con- sidering that a great quantity of tobacco which was consumed in the flames would otherwise have fallen into the enemy's hands, who thus deprived themselves of their booty which was * Pedro Simon says an Englishman advanced before the rest, shouting victory ; and Grades gave him such a sword stroke on the left side of the neck, that he sent the heretic to have the cry answered in hell : '• Que enibro al herege a que le respondieran a su canto en el injierno " (p. 640). t In the king's declaration it is said, that young Mr. Raleigh (who was likest to know his father's secret), when he led his soldiers upon the town, used these or the like words, " Come on, my hearts I here is the mine that ye must expect ; they that look for any other mine are fools ". Upon this Oldys says (203), "As if Raleigh was at so much toil, hazard, and expense, only to break the peace and drive a pack of poor Spaniards out of a worthless town. Nor does it seem likely that if young Raleigh knew this to be his father's secret, that he would thus disclose it ; but rather, if he did utter such an expression, that he suddenly invented it to give his men hopes of booty, knowing that would best excite them to bravery." jCayley, ii., 100, loi. 396 ENGLISH SEAMEN their main object. The English were now masters of the place, from which the defendants retired or ran, seeing that their ammunition began to fail, that the governor was missing, that Monge was slain, and another captain wounded. Mid- night was now past ; and those who had collected in their retreat were about, with the little ammunition which had been reserved, to go in search of the governor, when they met an Indian woman, Ventura by name; and asking her whither she was hastening, she replied, "after the women". For no sooner had a cry been raised that the enemy were entering than the women, with their children, and the servants and the infirm, had taken flight, without provisions of any kind, and by this time they had got half a league toward the mouth of the Caroni. The two alcaldes, upon whom the command devolved in default of the governor, sent Grados with a few soldiers to escort them across the river. That done, he re- turned to consult with these alcaldes, and with some four and twenty Spaniards, who had gathered together since their dispersion. "^ Their first object was to provide for the women. Grados was charged with this service ; he removed them three leagues higher up the Caroni, to a place called La Zaiva, which was thought to be secret and safe : there a few wretched huts were erected for them, and Grados collected some maize and some dried meat. The next object was to prevent the English from communicating with the Indians ; for if things had reached that point, says the Spanish historian, no doubt all the Spaniards would have been cut off, and the whole land utterly laid waste ; because the Indians, with that facility of disposition which marks them, especially those of this country, where almost all were in a state of insecure peace, needed little to make them rebel against their encomenderos and the other Christians. Raleigh had not misrepresented the temper of the natives. To prevent this dreaded com- munication, the alcaldes, with twenty men appointed for this especial charge, were night and day on the alert, f P. Francesco de Leuro, the cura of the city, had for some months lost the use of his limbs, and was consequently con- fined to his bed. There he had been left in the confusion, and forgotten by every one except an Indian woman, Lusya * Pedro Simon, 640, 641. \Ibid., 641. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 397 de Fonseca by name, a native of Nuevo Reyno, who was married to a negro. She carried the poor priest out of his house, and hid hira in a pit not far off. Going then to seek for the governor's body, upon a rumour that he was slain, some of the English fell in with her and carried her before their commander, whom she found with many others looking at the lifeless object of her search. She recognised Palameque by his stature, and by some marks on his face, though the blow which killed him had cleft his head. The priest mean- time had been discovered, and was brought upon his pallet to the English headquarters. He also identified Palameque's body ; and having replied as well as he could to their questions concerning other settlements, and whether there were gold mines, the English commander ordered him to be carried to one of his officer's quarters, and desired his surgeons to render hira what service they could. The Indian Luysa and two other Indian women, who had in like manner been met with, were told to bury the governor and Monge, who had also been recognised. They began to open a grave in the church ; but the ground was hard, and, growing weary of the task, they said to the English that they who had killed them might bury them. The bodies accordingly were laid behind the church, in a hole from which clay had been dug, and were there covered over with a little earth.* The captors searched in vain for gold in the city, under the guidance of two or three negroes who had fled to them, and of two Indians ; the one of whom, Christoval by name, a native of Sogamoso in the Nuevo Reyno, being a servant of the governor, had been left to take care of his house, and there made prisoner. Pedro Criollo, the other, who was by no voluntary compact in the service of a certain Captain Juan Ximenez, was in great favour with the English ; and having attired himself in the spoils of the slain, he sat at table with the officers, and was called Don Pedro, because he declared himself an enemy to the Spaniards, and said it would be a good thing to put an end to them all, especially his late master, whom he offered to kill with his own hands, if they would deliver him into them. The English were not more ready to believe any tales concerning the imaginary riches of the land, than the Spaniards were to accredit and adopt * Pedro Simon, 642-644. 398 ENGLISH SEAMEN any stories which might seem to depreciate their enemies. They said and believed that the English cut off the heads of their own slain, lest the Indian women should see and divulge how great their loss had been ; and that they threw the bodies into the river, pretending they were Spaniards, except some of the more honourable, whom they buried, five or six together, in the houses. But the general's son, and four others, were interred in the great church, with the honours of war ; drums beating, pikes trailing, and five banners borne before them : young Raleigh and another in one grave, near the high altar; the other three together in the body of the church. On the day of the funeral, two other vessels arrived.* Twelve days the Indian women re- mained with the captors, during which time the Chaguanas, who had guided the English to the city, supplied them with fruits and other provisions, and received in exchange part of the spoil, of which the English thought nothing, and they, like a miserable people as they were, prized highly. The women then being kept to hard service as cooks, and not very well treated, made their escape, and reported all that they had seen. They reported also, that a certain English captain, whom they called Don Juan, and who was well versed in the Spanish tongue, said they should return in a few months to revenge the death of their general's son, and of some other captains. -f- The fate of the governor having now been ascertained, the alcaldes, as succeeding to his authority, addressed a letter to the English commander, requiring him to leave the country, inasmuch as what he had done, and his continuance there as well, was in contradiction to the peace between Spain and England. A soldier, by name Diego Garcia, being sent with this, was blindfolded, and brought before the English com- mander. The person who received him, and who is repre- sented as tall and gaunt, with a cast in his eye, and about threescore years of age, and who said he had been in that country two and twenty years before, desired him to read the letter; and upon his replying that he could not read, told him to go his way, and send some one in his stead who could. * Keymis, in his letter of January 8th, says, " Captains Whitney and Wolaston are but now come to us. They had lain aground three days in passing up " (Cayley, ii., 97). t Pedro Simon, 644, 645. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 399 Garcia, however, had time to make some inquiries, through an interpreter, concerning the governor, and was informed that he and the general's son had fallen by each other's hand.* One Juan Negrete was then sent, but nothing came of this representation, "t" The alcaldes now despatched advices to Trinidad, Margar- ita, Cumana, and Caraccas. The English employed them- selves in burning the small plantations near the town, and destroying the cattle. They sent one launch to their ships at Trinidad, and two others, with some twenty or thirty men in each, up the Orinoco : these came to the mouth of the creek which led to La Zeiva, where the women and children were secreted ; and the largest of the launches was about to enter, when Grados, who had in good time posted nine of the invalids in ambush there, with about as many Indian bowmen, attacked them so unexpectedly, and with such good aim, that only one of the crew is said to have escaped unhurt. The other launch also suffered some loss. Three days afterwards three launches were sent, as was supposed, to take vengeance for this defeat ; but Grados had removed his charge some two leagues into the country, and these vessels then went up the river as far as the mouth of the Guarico, which is about 100 leagues up, sounding as they went, and treating with the Caribs, to whom they made presents, and larger promises. They were eighteen or twenty days on this expedition. | By this time the alcaldes had got together threescore armed Indians, with whom, and some twenty soldiers, they entered the city by night, and set fire to it in several places : rain prevented the flames from spreading; but the English were rendered careless by the failure of this attempt, and, before morning, they were assailed with arrows and musketry, and suffered considerable loss. A party also going up the river to carry off some maize, which was at this season ripe, was cut off by an ambush the next day. They had now been four weeks in the city ; and the alcaldes, perceiving no ap- pearance of their departing, sent to Santa Fe for assistance, requesting a commander, men, ammunition, clothing, cotton * Raleigh's account, as has been seen, differs from this. No such name as Erinetta occurs in the Spanish statement. The circumstance in which both statements agree is, that the Spanish officer who slew young Raleigh was himself slain. t Pedro Simon, 646. Xlbid., 647, 648. 210 ENGLISH SEAMEN sure, withdrew by a back door, and hastened to the lord mayor. Essex went into the house ; his countenance changed as he now became sensible of his own madness ; and struggling against such emotions as he had never felt before, he called for refreshments, and for Unen to shift himself, — for the sweat started at every pore."^ Meantime, Cecil's elder brother. Lord Burleigh, and Dethick, Garter king-at-arms, with some ten horse, came into the city, and, though some opposition was attempted, and some violence offered, proclaimed the earl and his adherents traitors. The Earl of Cumberland, and Sir Thomas Gerard, knight marshal, made the like proclamation in other parts of the city. As soon as Essex was informed of this, he hastened out of the sheriffs house, and in a state of hopelessness which had none of that resolution that so often accompanies despair, crying out that England was sold to the Infanta of Spain, he called again upon the citizens to arm. Not a man was found mad enough to stake his life upon a game that was already lost ; even his own deluded followers were beginning to slink away : and when he heard that the lord admiral was coming with a strong party of men to suppress the insurrection, he could devise no other course than that of returning to his own house, and endeavouring to obtain pardon by means of the four counsellors whom he had left there in durance. But Ludgate was guarded now by Sir John Levison with a competent force ; and when he found that he should not have leave to pass, he authorised Gorges to go alone and release the lord chief justice, and by his means intercede for pardon, while, as he fancied, there was still room and hope for it, . . no blood having been shed, the queen being as yet doubtful of the success, and the citizens' minds uncertain. Gorges's object was to take the best care he could for himself; and as the chief justice refused his liberty unless the lord keeper also were released, he set all the four counsellors free, and went with them by water to the court. -j- While Gorges thus provided for his own safety, Essex was too much agitated to act consistently with his last intentions. Finding a chain, as he returned home, drawn across the street near the west gate of St. Paul's, and pikemen and musketeers * Camden, 609. Birch, 466. f Camden, 610, Birch, 466, 467. ROBERT DEVEREUX 811 stationed by the bishop's care to defend it, he drew his sword and ordered Blount to fall on. It is possible that at this moment a feeling of old enmity may have impelled Blount eagerly to obey that order; for the person immediately op- posed to him (Waite by name) was one whom Leicester, being jealous of Blount (who afterwards married his widow), had sent, it is said, into Holland to assassinate him. This man Blount attacked fiercely, and killed him ; but he was presently forsaken by his own people, sore wounded, and taken prisoner. Henry Tracey was slain, a young gentleman whom Essex loved dearly ; and on the other part, two or three citizens. Essex was shot through the hat; being repulsed and not pursued, he turned aside to Queenhithe with the few who would not forsake him, and procuring boats there returned to his house. Arriving there, and finding that the counsellors were released, he was irritated, as seeing that Gorges had thought only of himself: he burnt several papers, that they might tell no tales (he said) ; and clinging to a forlorn hope that the Londoners might yet come to his succour, he prepared to defend his house, and fortified it as well as the time would allow on all sides. It was soon invested by the lord admiral ; and the Earls of Cumberland and Lincoln, the Lords Thomas Howard, Grey, Burleigh, and others, were stationed with horse and foot on the land side. The lord admiral himself, his son Lord Effingham, Lord Cobham, Sir John Stanhope, Sir Robert Sidney, and Sir Fulke Greville, occupied the garden, and prepared to attack it from the river side. Every- thing being ready for the assault, Sidney, by the lord admiral's order, summoned them to surrender. " To whom ? " Southampton asked ; " To our enemies .'' that would be running headlong to destruction. To the queen ? that were to confess ourselves guilty. Yet, if the lord admiral will give us hostages for our security, we will appear before the queen ; if not, we are every one resolved to die in our de- fence." The lord admiral returned for answer, that conditions were not to be propounded by rebels, nor hostages given to them ; but he signified to Essex that he would permit the countess, and Lady Rich his sister, and their waiting gentle- women, who were filling the air with their lamentations, to go out. Essex received this as a favour, and asked that an hour or two might be granted him for fortifying the place by which they should go forth. And this was granted ; it was. 402 ENGLISH SEAMEN and prosper your enterprise ! ' led them on, when some began to pause and recoil shamefully, this action had neither been attempted as it was, nor performed as it is, with this surviving honour. "This Indian pilot whom I have sent, if there be occasion to use his service in anything, will prove sufficient and trusty. Peter Andrews, whom I have sent with him, can better certify your lordship of the state of the town, the plenty, the condition of our men, etc., than I can write the same. We have the governor's servant prisoner, that waited on him in his bed-chamber, and knows all things that concerned his master. We find there are four refiners' houses in the town, the best houses of the town. I have not seen one piece of coin, or bullion, neither gold nor silver, a small deal of plate only excepted. " Captains Whitney and Wolaston are but now come to us ; and now I purpose (God willing), without delay, to visit the mine, which is not eight miles from the town. Sooner I could not go, by reason of the murmurings, the discords, and vexa- tions, wherewith the sergeant-major is perpetually tormented and tired, having no man to assist him but myself only. Things are now in some reasonable order ; and, so soon as I have made trial of the mine, I will seek to come to your lord- ship by the way of the river Macario, by which river I have appointed Peter Andrews to go, and to search the channels, that, if it be possible, our ships may shorten the course for Trinidado, when time serves, by those passages. I have sent your lordship a parcel of scattered papers (I reserve a cart- load), one roll of tobacco, one tortoise, and some oranges and lemons. Praying God to give you strength and health of body, and a mind armed against all extremities, I rest, ever to be commanded, this 8th of January, l6l7-18, " Yoiir lordship's, \ " Keymis." \ The visit to the mine, for which Keymis declared himself ready in this letter, was that expedition to the Caroni, in which, having approached the place whereto the women and children had been conveyed, the English were driven back by an ambush placed there by Grados. The loss which they suffered was overstated by the Spaniards, but it was consider- SIR WALTER RALEIGH 403 able * enough to defeat Keymis's intention of making any farther search for a mine the site of which was unknown, and the very existence doubtful. How far he had deceived himself, or had knowingly assisted in deceiving others, is perhaps more doubtful in Keymis's case than in Sir Walter's ; but, of the persons most implicated, he is the one who came to the most tragical end. Young Raleigh died as he would have wished to die, could he have foreseen what awaited his father ; and Sir Walter owes much of the respect and all the compassion with which his memory is regarded, to the manner of his own death. When Keymis, leaving the Orinoco, rejoined Sir Walter off Trinidad, he gave as his excuse for having resolved not to open the mine (and I think, says Raleigh, it was true), that ''the Spaniards, being gone off in a whole body, lay in the woods between the mine and their passage ; and it was impossible, except they had been beaten out of the country, to pass up the woody and craggy hills without the loss of those commanders which should have led them ; who, had they been slain, the rest would easily enough have been cut in pieces in their retreat. For being in possession of the town, which they guarded with the greatest part of three companies, they had yet their hands full to defend themselves fVom firing, and the daily and nightly alarms wherewith they were vexed. He also gave for an excuse, that it was impossible to lodge any companies at the mine for want of victual, which from the town they were not able to carry up the mountains, their companies being divided. He, therefore, as he told me, thinking it a greater error to discover it to the Spaniards (themselves neither being able to work it nor possess it) than to excuse himself to the company, said that he could not find it." f Raleigh tells us (and it is in his own words that his conduct toward Keymis ought to be recorded), that he rejected all these fancies, and before divers of the gentlemen disavowed *'*It is true," says Raleigh, "that when Captain Keymis found the river low, and that he could not approach the banks in most places near the mine by a mile, and when he found a descent, a volley of shot came from the woods upon the boat and slew two rowers, and hurt six others, and shot a valiant gentleman (Captain Thornhurst, of which wound he languisheth to this day), he, to wit, Keymis, following his own advice, thought that it was in vain to discover the mine " (Cayley, ii., 74). j-Ibid., 103, 104. 404 ENGLISH SEAMEN his ignorance : " for I told him/' says he, " that a blind man might find it, by the marks which himself had set down under his hand. Then I told him that his care of losing so many men in passing through the woods was but feigned ; for after my son was slain, I knew that he had no care at all of any man surviving ; and therefore had he brought to the king but one hundredweight of the ore, though with the loss of 100 men, he had given His Majesty satisfaction, preserved my reputation, and given our nation encouragement to have returned the next year with greater force, and to have held the country for His Majesty, to whom it belongeth. But seeing he had followed his own advice and not mine, I should be forced to leave him to his arguments, with the which, if he could satisfy His Majesty and the State, I should be glad of it ; that for my part he must excuse me to justify it, that he if it had pleased him, though with some loss of men, might have gone directly to the place. With that he seemed greatly discontent, and so he continued divers days. Afterwards he came to me in my cabin, and showed me a letter which he had written to the Earl of Arundel, to whom he excused himself for not discovering of the mine, using the same arguments and many others which he had done before, and prayed me to allow of his apology. But I told him that he had undone me by his obstinacy, and that I would not favour or colour in any sort his former folly. He then asked me whether that were my resolution. I answered that it was. He then replied in these words, ' I know not then, sir, what course to take ' : and went out of my cabin into his own, in which he was no sooner entered but I heard a pistol go off. I went up (not suspecting any such thing as the killing of himself) to know who shot a pistol ; Keymis himself made answer, lying on his bed, that he had shot it off because it had been long charged, with which I was satisfied. Some half-hour after this, the boy going into his cabin, found him dead, having a long knife thrust under his left pap through his heart, and his pistol lying by him, with which it appeared that he had shot himself; but the bullet lighting upon a rib, had but broken the rib, and went no farther." * If Raleigh had entertained a hope of making Keymis f his *Cayley, 104, 105. t '* Now he that knew Keymis did also know that he was of that obstinate resolution, and a man so far from caring to please or satisfy SIR WALTER RALEIGH 405 scapegoat, that hope was now destroyed. What course was he now to pursue ? " I protest before God," he says, in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, " had not Captain Whitney, to whom I gave more countenance than to all the captains of my fleet, ran from me at the Granadas, and carried another ship with him of Captain Wolaston's, I would have left my body at St. Thomas by my son's, or have brought with me out of that or other mines so much gold ore as should have satisfied the king I propounded no vain thing." * But Raleigh well knew that his men would not have followed him in so desperate an attempt if he had proposed it to them. He describes them as " a company of volunteers, who for the most part had seen neither the sea nor the wars ; who, some forty gentlemen ex- cepted, were the very scum of the world, drunkards, blas- phemers, and such others as their fathers, brothers, and friends thought it an exceeding good gain to be discharged of them with the hazard of some thirty, forty, or fifty pounds, knowing that they could not have lived a whole year so cheap at home ". -f Essex had adherents who followed him with devoted fidelity to their own destruction, but Raleigh seems to have had no friends. It was given out by the first master of his ship, whom he calls an hypocritical thief, and by " an ungrateful youth (though of honourable worthy parents), who waited on him in his cabin," that he had carried with him from England 22,000 pieces of twenty-two shillings the piece, and therefore that he needed not, or cared not, to discover any mine in Guiana, nor make any other attempt elsewhere ; " which report," says he, " being carried secretly from one to another in my ship, and so spread through all the ships in the fleet which stayed with me in Trinidad while our land forces were in Guiana, had like to have been my utter overthrow in a most miserable fashion. For it was consulted when I had taken my barge and gone ashore (either to discover or other- wise, as I often did), that my ship should have set sail, and any man but himself, as no man's opinion, from the greatest to the least, could have persuaded him to have laid violent hands on himself. Neither would he have done it when he did, could he have said unto me that he was ignorant of that place, and knew no such mine ; for what cause had I then to have rejected his excuses, or to have laid his obstinacy to his charge ? Thus much have I added, because there are some puppies which have given it out that Keymis slew himself because he had seduced so many gentlemen and others with an imaginary mine " (Cayley, io6). * Jbid., 7s. fIbid.,S^. 406 ENGLISH SEAMEN left me there, where either I must have suffered famme, been eaten with wild beasts, or have fallen into the hands of the Spaniards and been flayed alive, as others of the English which came thither but to trade only had formerly been." * Raleigh now began to regard his enterprise with that melan- choly wisdom which comes too late. " True it is," said he, "that as many things succeed both against reason and our best endeavours, so it is most commonly true that men are the cause of their own misery, as I was of mine when I under- took my late enterprise without a pardon. For all my company having heard it avowed in England before I went, that the commission I had was granted to a man who was non ens in law, so that the want thereof took from me both arms and action, it gave boldness to every petty companion to spread rumours to my defamation, and the wounding of my reputation, in all places where I could not be present to make them knaves and liars." "f And now, knowing that his company "cast a sad eye homeward," he called a council of his captains, and pro- pounded to them his intention of making for Newfoundland, there to revictual and refresh his ships. On the way thither he wrote thus from St. Christopher's to his wife : — " I was loath to write, because I know not how to comfort you ; and God knows I never knew what sorrow meant till now. All that I can say to you is, that you must obey the will and providence of God ; and remember that the queen's majesty bore the loss of Prince Henry with a magnanimous heart, and the Lady Harrington of her only son. Comfort your heart, dearest Bess : I shall sorrow for us both. And I shall sorrow the less, because I have not long to sorrow, because not long to live. " I refer you to Mr. Secretary Winwood's letter, who will give you a copy of it if you send for it. Therein you shall know what hath passed, which I have written by that letter ; for my brains are broken, and it is a torment to me to write, especially of misery. I have desired Mr. Secretary to give my Lord Carew a copy of his letter. I have cleansed my ship of sick men and sent them home, and hope thait God will send us somewhat before we return. You shall hear from me, if I live, from Newfoundland, where I mean to clesm my *Cayley, 85. f/ftirf., 88. ^ SIR WALTER RALEIGH 407 ships and to revictual, for I have tobacco enough to pay for it. The Lord bless and comfort you, that you may bear patiently the death of your most valiant son. " Yours, "Walter Raleigh." " Postscript. — I protest before the majesty of God, that as Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins died heartbroken when they failed of their enterprise, I could willingly do the like did I not contend against sorrow for your sake, in hope to provide somewhat for you to comfort and relieve you. If I live to return, resolve yourself that it is the care for you that hath strengthened my heart." Relating then what had passed between him and Keymis, he says, "Thus much I have written to Mr. Secretary, to whose letters I refer you. But because I think my friends will rather hearken after you than any other to know the truth, I did, after the sealing, break open the letter again, to let you know in brief the state of that business, which I pray you impart to my Lord of North- umberland, and Silvanus Scorie, and to Sir John Leigh." (Com- plaining then that he had been exposed to slaughter by the revealment of his designs to the King of Spain, he says), " It were too long to tell you how we were preserved ; if I live, I shall make it known. My brains are broken, and I cannot write much. I live yet, and I told you why. Whitney, for whom I sold all my plate at Plymouth, and to whom I gave more credit and countenance than to all the captains of my fleet, ran from me at the Granadas, and Wolaston with him. So as I have now but five ships, and one of those I have sent home, and in my fly-boat a rabble of idle rascals, which I know will not spare to wound me ; but I care not. I am sure there is never a base slave in all the fleet hath taken the pains and care that I have done, that hath slept so little and travailed so much. My friends will not believe them ; for the rest I care not. God in Heaven bless you and strengthen your heart. " Yours, "Walter Raleigh."* In his letter to the secretary, written the day before the date of this to his wife. Sir Walter says, " What shall become * Cayley, 78-82, 408 ENGLISH SEAMEN of me I know not. I am unpardoned in England, and my poor estate consumed ; and whether my prince will give me bread or no, I know not. I desire your honour to hold me in your good opinion, to remember my service to my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, 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. I have found many things of importance for discovering the state and weakness of the Indies, which, if I live, I shall hereafter impart unto your honour." In a postscript, he affirms that since Keymis's death some of his inward friends had confessed he told them he could have brought them to the mines within two hour's march from the river side ; but because young Raleigh was slain, and his father unpardoned and not likely to live, he had no reason to open it, either for the Spaniards or the king. "Sir," Sir Walter adds, "I have sent unto England with my cousin Herbert (a very valiant honest gentleman) divers unworthy persons, good for nothing, neither by sea nor land ; and though it was at their own suit, yet I know they will wrong me in all that they can. I beseech your honour that the scum of men may not be believed of me, who have taken more pains and suffered more than the meanest rascal in the ship. These being gone, I shall be able to keep the sea until the end of August, with some four reasonable good ships. Sir, wheresoever God shall permit me to arrive in any part of Europe, I will not fail to let your hononr know what we have done. Till then, and ever, I remain, "Your honour's servant, "Walter Raleigh." It is affirmed in the declaration of Raleigh's demeanour and carriage, which was published by authority, that when he propounded to his captains his design of making for New- foundland, he proposed also to go from thence to the Western Islands, and there lie in wait for the Mexican fleet, or to surprise some carracks, " and so having gotten treasure, which might make him welcome unto any foreign country, to take some new course for his future fortunes". To some such privateering project his letter to his wife points, in that passage where he expresses a hope that God would send SIR WALTER RALEIGH 409 them something before they returned. But the declaration charges him with " then and at divers times openly declaring that there was no coming for England, for that he knew not how things would be construed, and for his part would never put his head under the king's girdle, except he first saw the great seal for his pardon. At which time (it is farther said in this statement), his cogitations embracing east and west rather than any return unto his country, he did in particular make promise to a principal commander in his company to give him a ship to go into the East Indies, if he would accompany him thither. But according to his first project he went to Newfoundland, which he needed not to have done if his purpose had been for England (for that he had victuals enough and to spare for that journey) ; and then at New- foundland, his other company having formerly dispersed and forsaken him, his own company which was in his own ship began likewise to mutiny. And although some old pirates, either by his inciting, or out of fear of their own case, were fierce and violent for the sea and against the return, yet the far greater number were for the return : at which time him- self got on land, and stood upon the sea-bank, and put it to a question, whether they should return for England, or land at Newfoundland. Whereupon there was a division of voices, the one part to the starboard, and the other to the larboard ; of which that part which was for the return to England was two parts of three, and would by no means be drawn to set foot on land, but kept themselves in the ship, where they were sure they were masters. Which he perceiving, for fear of farther mutiny, professed in dissimulation that he himself was for the return unto England, and came and stood among them that had most voices. But, nevertheless, after that he despaired to draw his company to follow him farther, he made offer of his own ship, which was of great value, to his company, if they would set him aboard a French barque. The like offer he made when he came upon the coast of Ireland, to some of his chief officers there." * The news of his attack upon the Spaniards, of his son's death, Keymis's suicide, and the mutinous dispersion of his fleet, reached England before him. Gondomar, demanding an audience of the king, promised that all he had to say should * Cayley, ii. Appendix, 432-434, 410 ENGLISH SEAMEN be included in one word ; and that promise he kept, by pro- nouncing vehemently in the royal presence Piratas ! Piratas ! Piratas ! and abruptly leaving the apartment. He made no remonstrance, and waited for no answer. James made no attempt to defend an enterprise which he himself rightly considered to be indefensible, nor to extenuate the outrages which had been committed ; but issued a proclamation saying, " that he had licensed Sir Walter Raleigh and others with him to undertake a voyage to Guiana, where they pretended great hopes and probabilities of discovering certain gold mines for the lawful enriching of themselves and these kingdoms ; that he had expressly forbidden them to attempt any act of hostility, wrong, or violence upon the territories or subjects of any foreign prince with whom he was in amity, but more particularly those of the King of Spain, in respect of his dominions and interests on that continent ; all which notwith- standing, he was informed by common fame that, by a hostile invasion of the town of St. Thomas, which was under the obedience of the King of Spain, and by killing divers of the inhabitants thereof, and afterwards by sacking and burning the town, they had, as much as in them lay, maliciously broken the peace between the two crowns : wherefore he held it fit, as appertaining nearly to his royal justice and honour, eftsoons to make a public declaration of his own utter mislike and detestation of their insolences and excesses, if any such had been by any of his subjects committed ; and for the better detection of the very truth of this common fame, he required all who had any particular knowledge of the pro- ceedings to appear before his privy council, and declare what they knew, that he might thereupon proceed in his princely justice to the exemplary punishment and coercion of all who should be convicted and found guilty of so scandalous and enormous outrages".* James also directed Buckingham to write to the King of Spain, and assure him that he would punctually perform his promise of sending the offender to be dealt with in Spain, unless that king should deem it more satisfactory that he should receive in England the punishment due to his offences. Upon his arrival at Plymouth Sir Walter was informed of the proclamation which had been issued concerning him, and * Rymer, xvii., 92. Cayley, Appendix, 410, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 411 then perhaps for the first time became fully aware of his danger. At this time it was that he is believed to have ad- dressed a letter to the king, not so much in excuse, as in justification of himself. It was in these words : — " May it please your most excellent majesty, " If on my journey outward bound I had my men murdered at the islands, and yet spared to take revenge ; if I did discharge some Spanish barques taken without spoil ; if I forbore all parts of the Spanish Indies, wherein I might have taken twenty of their towns on the sea-coasts, and did only follow the enterprise I undertook for Guiana, where, without any directions from me, a Spanish village was burnt, which was new set up within three miles of the mine, — by your majesty's favour, I find no reason why the Spanish ambassador should complain of me. " If it were lawful for the Spaniards to murder twenty-six Englishmen, tying them back to back and cutting their throats, when they had traded with them a whole month, and came to them on the land without so much as one sword ; and it may not be lawful for your majesty's subjects, being charged first by them, to repel force by force, — we may justly say, O miserable English ! If Parker and Mecham took Campeachy and other places in the Honduras, situated in the heart of the Spanish Indies, burnt towns, and killed the Spaniards, and had nothing said to them at their return ; and myself, who forbore to look into the Indies because I would not offend, must be accused, — I may justly say, O miserable Raleigh ! If I have spent my poor estate, lost my son, suffered by sickness and otherwise a world of hardships ; if I have re- sisted, 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 much 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 5000/. or 6000/. in my purse, and yet brought her into England ; — I beseech your majesty to believe that all this I have done, because 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, 412 ENGLISH SEAMEN '^ My mutineers told me that if I returned for England, I should be undone. But I believed in your majesty's goodness more than all their arguments. Sure 1 am the first that, being free and able to enrich himself, yet hath embraced poverty and peril, and as sure I am an example shall make me the last. But your majesty's wisdom and goodness I have made my judges, who have ever been and shall ever be, '* Your majesty's most humble vassal, ''W. Raleigh."* Gondomar had at this time gone to Spain with the articles for that proposed marriage between Prince Charles and the infanta which James had so much at heart. It was said at his departure, that when the affair of Raleigh, and of some London 'prentices who had insulted the ambassador, should be settled, in whatever way, no farther instances for justice would be made thereafter on the part of Spain ; but if there were slackness in these cases they would be laid up, and would serve for materials of future and final discontentments.-)' Indeed, however much James may have wished to gratify the Spanish court, he could not, consistently with the law of nations and with public faith, let so flagrant a breach of peace as Raleigh had committed pass without condign punishment. The official declaration says that he "used a gracious and mild course toward him, sending down Sir Lewis Stukely, vice-admiral of the county of Devon, to bring him in fair manner, and as his health would give leave, by easy journeys to London". There can, however, be no doubt (as there could be none concerning the offence with which Raleigh was charged), that this " gracious and mild course " was intended to end in bringing him to the block. Raleigh apprehended this too surely. He had set out for London, meaning to surrender in consequence of the king's proclama- tion ; but before he reached Ashburton, meeting Stukely (who was his kinsman), and finding himself placed in arrest under him, he turned back with him to Plymouth. There, taking advantage of the easy custody in which he was held, " He dealt with the owner of a French barque, pretending it was for a gentleman, a friend of his, to make ready his barque *01dys, 211. Tytler, 374-376. fToby Matthew to Lord Bacon. Cayley, ii., 148. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 413 for a passage, and offered him twelve crowns for his pains. And one night he went in a little boat to see the barque ; but the night being very dark, he missed it, and came back again, nothing done." * If one who betrayed his confidence, and was in other respects a knave, may be believed in anything respecting one whom he had duped and deceived, Raleigh expected at that time to be favourably dealt with ; for this man says, that when letters from the privy council came to Stukely, requiring him to bring his prisoner to London with more haste than was before expected, he was seen to stamp with his feet and pull his hair, and heard to exclaim, " God's wounds ! Is it possible my fortune should return upon me thus again ! " -j- His immediate object now was to gain time for the exertion of such influence as Buckingham and the queen might be prevailed on to use in his behalf, or for concerting means of escape. There was in his company a Frenchman, Mannourie by name, who is described as "a. professor of physic, and one that had many chemical recipes". He employed Captain King, one of his old officers, to sound him : the answer which he received from this knave was, that, ''according to his small ability, he was ready to do him all honest service he could, so it might be done without offence ". Having, as he supposed, secured his assistance, Raleigh, when they reached Salisbury, told him of his intent to counterfeit sickness, saying, " I know that it is good for me to evacuate many bad humours, and by these means I shall gain time to work my friends, give order for my affairs, and, it may be, pacify His Majesty before my coming to London ; for 1 know well that, as soon as I come there I shall be sent to the Tower, and that they will cut off my head if I use no means to escape it ". That evening, therefore, he pretended to be seized with giddiness, and dimness of sight. The next day, after his wife and most of his servants had been sent forward to London, he feigned a sort of fit, took secretly a vomit which the French- man prepared for him, and either imposed upon Stukely, or believed that he had done so. But this was not enough ; he asked Mannourie, " if he could invent anything that might make him look horrible and loathsome outwardly, without * Mr. Cayley says, •' the goodness of his cause prevailed over every apprehension, and this project was laid aside ". t Declaration. Cayley, Appendix, 436. 414 ENGLISH SEAMEN offending the principal parts, or making him sick inwardly ". Mannourie studied a little, and then told him that he would make a composition presently of certain things, which would make him like a leper from head to foot, without doing him any harm, which, at his entreaty, he effected speedily ; Raleigh telling him, " his being in that case would make the lords of the council afraid to come near him, and move them with more pity to favour him". The composition was put upon his brow, his arms, and his breast ; and when Stukely saw him "all pimpled'* in consequence, "his face full of great blisters of divers colours, having in the midst a little touch of yellow, and round about like a purple colour, and all the rest of his skin as it were inflamed with heat," he began to ap- prehend the danger of the disease, that it was contagious. Upon this two physicians, and a third, a bachelor in physic, were called in ; they could tell nothing of what humour the said sickness was composed ; only they gave their opinion that the patient could not be exposed to the air without manifest peril of his life. The time which Raleigh gained by this and other artifices of the same kind, he employed in drawing up an apology for his last voyage : it was transcribed for him by Mannourie, for presentation to the king. He began by saying, " If the ill success of this enterprise of mine had been without example, I should have needed a large discourse and many arguments for my justification. But if the vain attempts of the greatest princes in Europe, both among themselves and against the great Turk, are, in all modern histories, left to every eye to peruse, it is not so strange that myself^ being but a private man, and drawing after me the chains and fetters whereunto I have been thirteen years tied in the Tower, being unpardoned, and in disgrace with my sovereign lord, have, by other men's errors, failed in the attempt I undertook." He then instanced the failure of Charles V. at Algiers ; the destruction of Sebas- tian and his army ; the defeat of the Spanish Armada ; the last fatal expedition of Drake and Hawkins ; and the Portugal voyage, from which Sir John Norris (though not by any fault of his) returned with the loss, by sickness and otherwise, of 8000 men.* After vindicating himself against the various * It is remarkable that he speaks ill of Drake, saying that in the " first prize of treasure which he took at Valdivia, he found a pilot called John SIR WALTER RALEIGH 415 imputations of misconduct during the voyage, he transcribed his instructions to Keymis ; whicli, however, never could be thought to exculpate him from the charge of having invaded the possessions of an allied prince. " I advise you (it was there written) to pass up to the westward of the mountain Aio, from whence you have no less than three miles to the mine, and to lodge and encamp between the Spanish town and you, if there be any town near it ; that, being so secured, you may make trial what depth and breadth the mine holds, and whether or no it answers our hopes. And if you find it royal, and the Spaniards begin to war upon you, then let the sergeant-major repel them, if it be in his power, and drive them as far as he can. . . . On the other side, if you shall find that any number of soldiers be newly sent into Orinoco, as the cacique of Caliana told us that there were, and that the passages be already fenced, so that, without manifest peril of my son, yourself, and other captains, you cannot pass towards the mine, then be well advised how you land. For I know (a few gentlemen excepted) what a scum of men you have ; and I would not for all the world receive a blow from the Spaniard to the dishonour of our nation. I myself, for my weakness, cannot be present ; neither will the company land except I stay with the ships, the galleons of Spain being daily expected. You shall find me at Porto Gallo, dead or alive ; and if you find not my ships there, yet you shall find their ashes : for I will fire with the galleons if it come to extremity, but run away I will never." * It was not his fault, he proceeded to say, that these his in- structions were not followed. " For Keymis and the rest were by accident forced to change their first resolution ; and finding a Spanish town, or rather village, set up twenty miles distant from the place where Berrio had attempted to plant, some two leagues to the westward of the mine, they agreed to en- Grege, who guided him all that coast, in which he possessed himself of the rest. Which pilot, because he should not rob him of his reputation and knowledge in those parts (resisting the entreaties and tears of all his company), he set ashore upon the island of Aigulus, that is Alligators, to be by them devoured." He observes that Drake was never called to an account for cutting off Doughty's head, having neither martial law nor other commission available ; and he says that both Drake and Cavendish had one and the same fate, " when chance had left them to the trial of their own virtues ". * Cayley, ii., 82-89. 416 ENGLISH SEAMEN camp between the mine and the town, which they did not suspect to be so near them as it was. And, meaning to rest themselves on the river's side till the next day, they were in the night set upon by the Spaniards. To repel this unlooked-for attack, they charged the Spaniards, and, following them upon their retreat, they were ready to enter the town before they knew where they were. And when they were attacked again, and exposed to a fire of murderers and muskets, they had no way to save themselves but by firing the houses." He pro- ceeded then to charge Key mis with obstinacy, folly, and mis- conduct. ''Had the companies' commanders," said he, "but pinched the governor's man, whom they had in their possession, he could have told them of two or three gold mines, and a silver mine, not above four miles from the town, and given them the names of their possessors, with the reason why they forbore to work them at that time, and when they left oflf from working them ; which they did as well because they wanted negroes, as because they feared lest the English, French, or Dutch, would have forced them from them, being once thoroughly opened, having not sufficient strength to defend themselves. But to this I have heard it said, since my return, that the governor's man was by me persuaded, being in my power, to say that such mines there were, when, indeed, there was no such thing. Certainly they were but silly fools that discovered this subtil ty of mine ; who have not yet, by the long calenture that weakened me, lost all my wits, which I must have done if I had left my reputation in trust with a mulatto, who, for a pot or two of wine, for a dozen of hatchets, or a gay suit of apparel, would have confessed that I had taught him to speak of mines which were not in rerum naturd. No, I protest before the majesty of God, that, without any other arguments or promise of mine than well usage, he hath discovered to me the way to five or six of the richest mines which the Spaniard hath, and whence all the mass of gold that comes into Spain is in effect drawn." * Raleigh then defended himself against the charge of having held out false pretences for the expedition, knowing of no such mine as he had engaged to lead it to. There could be no possible motive, he argued, for acting thus deceitfully. ''If it had been to have gotten my liberty," said he, "why * Cayley, ii., 99, 108. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 417 did I not keep my liberty when I had it ? Nay, why did I put my life in manifest peril to forego it? If I had had a purpose to turn pirate, why did I oppose myself against the greatest number of my company, and was thereby in danger to be slain or cast into the sea because I refused it ? A strange fancy had it been in me to have persuaded my son, whom I have lost, and to have persuaded my wife to have adventured the 8000/. which His Majesty gave them for Sherborne, and, when that was spent, to persuade my wife to sell her house at Mitcham, in hope of enriching them by the mines of Guiana, if I myself had not seen them with my own eyes. For, being old and weakly, thirteen years in prison, and not used to the air, to travail, and to watching, it being ten to one that I should ever have returned, and of which, by reason of my violent sickness, and the long continuance thereof, no man had any hope, what madness could have made me undertake this journey, but the assurance of the mine, thereby to have done His Majesty service, to have bettered my country by the trade, and to have restored my wife and children their estates they had lost, for which I have refused all other ways or means ? For that I had no purpose to have changed my master and my country, my return in the state I did return may satisfy every honest and indifferent man." * There remained the more difficult task of excusing himself from the charge of having broken the peace with Spain. This he endeavoured to do by averring that the territories which he had entered belonged rightfully to England. "An un- fortunate man I am," said he, "and it is to me a greater loss than all I have lost, that it pleaseth His Majesty to be offended for the burning of a Spanish town in Guiana, of which those parts bordering the river of Orinoco, and to the south as far as the Amazons, do by the law of nations belong to the crown of England, as His Majesty was well resolved when it pleased him to grant part thereof to Mr. Harcourt. The Spaniards have lately set up a wooden town in Orinoco, and made a kind of fort, but they have never been able either to conquer the Guianians, nor to reconcile them. But the Guianians before their planting there did willingly resign all that territory to His Majesty, who by me promised to receive them and defend them against the Spaniards. And though * Cayley, ii., no, in. 27 418 ENGLISH SEAMEN I was a prisoner for these last fourteen years ; yet I was at the charge every year, or every second year, to send unto them to keep them in hope of being relieved. And the greatest of the natural lords did offer us a rich mine of gold in his own country, in hope to hold us there. And if this usurped possession of the Spaniard be a sufficient bar to His Majesty's right, and that thereby the King of Spain calls himself King of Guiana, why might he not as well call himself Duke of Brittany, because he took possession of Blavet, and built a fort there, and call himsels King of Ireland, because he took possession of Smerwic and built a fort there? If the territory belonged to Spain," he said, "and not to England, it had been no less a breach of peace to work a mine there than to take a town and burn it." * But what he most insisted on was that the Spaniards by their conduct allowed of no peace in the Indies. "If we had had any peace with them in those parts of the world," said he, " why did even those Spaniards which were now encountered in Guiana, tie twenty-six Englishmen out of Mr. Hall's ship, of London, and mine, back to back, and cut their throats, after they had traded with them a whole month, and came to them ashore, having not so much as a sword, or any other weapon, among them all } And if the Spaniard to our com- plaints made answer, that there was nothing in the treaty against our trading in the Indies, but that we might trade at our peril, I trust in God that the word peril shall ever be construed to be indifferent to both nations ; otherwise we must for ever abandon the Indies, and lose all our knowledge and our pilotage of that part of the world. If there be no other peace than this, how can there be a breach of peace ? Since the Spaniards with all nations, and all nations with them, may trade upon their guard. For to break peace where there is no peace, is impossible. But in truth the Spanish ambassador hath complained against me to no other end than to prevent my complaints against the Spaniards, when, landing my men in a territory appertaining to the crown of England, they were invaded and slain before any violence offered to the Spaniards; and I hope the ambassador doth not esteem us for so wretched and miserable a people, as to offer our throats to their swords without any manner of resistance." f *Cayley, ii., 111-115. flbid.^ 115, 116, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 419 Enclosing this paper to Lord Carew, Raleigh said, that because he knew not whether he should live to come before the lords, he had there set down for His Majesty's satisfaction as much as he could say, either for his own defence, or against himself, as things were now construed. But in this letter to Lord Carew an admisssion escaped him, that he had deceived the king by the suppression of a material fact when he pro- posed the expedition ; and that he went out expecting and determined on hostilities, " It is true," he says, " that though I acquainted His Majesty with my intent to land in Guiana, yet I never made it known to His Majesty that the Spaniards had any footing there. Neither had I any authority by patent to remove them from thence ; and, therefore, His Majesty had no interest in the attempt of St. Thomas, by any foreknowledge. But knowing His Majesty's title to the country to be best and most Christian, because the natural lords did most willingly acknowledge Queen Elizabeth to be their sovereign, I made no doubt but I might enter the land by force, seeing the Spaniards had no other title than force (the Pope's donative excepted), considering also that they had got possession there divers years since my possession for the crown of England." He admitted also having been of opinion that they must drive the Spaniards out of the town before they could pass to the mine ; and that, better bethinking himself, he had referred the taking of the town to the good- ness of the mines : " which if they found to be so rich," said he, " as it might persuade the leaving of the garrison, then to drive the Spaniards thence ; but to have burnt was never my intent, neither could they give me any reason why they did". Then, after appealing to the sense of justice and of national honour whether it should be lawful for the Spaniards to murder us either by force or treason, and unlawful for us to defend ourselves and pay them with their own coin, and say- ing this superiority and inferiority was a thing to which no absolute monarch ever had yielded, or ever would, he con- cluded thus : — " This is all that I can say, other than that I have spent my poor estate, lost my son and my health, and endured as many sorts of miseries as ever man did, in hope to do His Majesty acceptable service, and have not to my understanding committed any hostile act, other than entrance lipon a territory belonging rightly to the crown of England, 420 ENGLISH SEAMEN where the English were first set upon and slain by the usurping Spaniards, — I invaded no other parts of the Indies pretended to by the Spaniards ; I returned unto England with manifest peril of my life, with a purpose not to hold my life with any other than His Majesty's grace, and from which no man nor any peril could dissuade me. To that grace and goodness and kingliness, I refer myself, which, if it shall find that I have not yet suffered enough, it yet may please to add more affliction to the remainder of a wretched life." * That Raleigh had deceived himself concerning the mine seems probable ; but, from his own statement, it plainly appears that he had deceived the king by withholding from him the important circumstance which he himself well knew, that the country in which it lay was actually in possession of the Spaniards : it is evident also that he went out with the expectation and intention of engaging in hostilities. If he should return successful and rich, he presumed that popular opinion and money would procure indemnity for him. Per- haps when he had drawn up this statement, he became for the first time fully sensible of his danger, perceiving the invalidity of his vindication ; and then he resolved upon attempting to fly, at whatever risk. Having trusted Man- nourie so far, it was not putting himself more in his power to trust him further. He gave him twenty crowns, and promised him fifty pounds a year if he would aid him to escape. The Frenchman, ready to do anything for money, engaged to serve him, and proposed that when they came to London he should secrete himself in the house of a friend to whom he could confide him. At first Raleigh inclined to this advice ; but in the end he told Mannourie that he had already sent Captain King to hire him a barque below Gravesend which could go with all winds, and a boat to carry him to it ; " for in London," said he, " I should always be in fear to be discovered by the general searchers. But to escape, I must get leave to go to my house." Being there, he supposed that he might slip from Stukely by a back door, and reach the boat, as no one, seeing him so feeble as he pretended to be, would suspect that he could go on foot. The favour of going to his own house was obtained by means of the vice-chamberlain and the secretary Naunton. Mannourie said it might be seen by this *Cayley, ii., 1 17-122. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 421 that the king had no meaning to take his Hfe, since he granted him this indulgence for recovery of his health. '* No/' replied Sir Walter, " they used all these kinds of flatteries to the Duke of Biron, to draw him fairly to the prison, and then they cut off his head. I know they have concluded among them that it is expedient a man should die to reassure the traffic which I have broken in Spain." * The Frenchman saw some danger in assisting Raleigh, some advantage in promising to do so, and more in betraying him. Taking, therefore, the safe and the gainful part, he acquainted Stukely with the prisoner's purpose ; and Raleigh, seeing that strict watch was set upon him as they proceeded from Salisbury toward London, told Mannourie there was no way but to gain Stukely over, and charged this agent to carry him a jewel which he valued at 150/., and persuade him to connive at his escape. Stukely returned for answer that he was content to do so, but would escape with him, rather than tarry behind with shame and reproach. The delusion was carried on by deliberating how Stukely might contrive previously to dis- pose of his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him 600/. Mannourie's part was now at an end ; and taking his leave, to go to London, he said to Sir Walter that he did not expect to see him again in England. If Raleigh had not trusted to this knave, he might have availed him of an offer made by Le Clerc, the French king's agent at the English court, who sent one of his suite to meet him at Brentford, and say that he desired to speak with him as soon as might be after his arrival, for matters greatly concerning his weal and safety. Ac- cordingly, the night after he arrived at his own house, Le Clerc came to him and offered him a French barque which he had prepared for his escape, and withal letters to the Governor of Calais, for his safe conduct and reception, and moreover to send a gentleman that should attend and meet him there. But Raleigh, finding the French vessel "not to *Cayley, ii.. Appendix, 441, 442. Thus far Mannourie relates nothing but what has an appearance of truth; but his testimony is worth nothing when he adds how Raleigh " thereupon broke forth into most hateful and traitorous words against the king's own person, ending in a menace and bravery, that if he could save himself for that time, he would plot such plots as should make the king think himself happy to send for him again, and render him his estate with advantage; yea, and for the King of Spain to write unto England in his favour ". 422 ENGLISH SEAMEN be so ready nor so fit " as that which King had engaged, declined the offer, as being already provided with such means ; but thankfully accepted his letters, because his acquaintance in France was worn out.* King, meantime, had endeavoured to provide a boat by means of one Cotterell, who had been Raleigh's servant. Cotterell advised him rather to employ a man by name Hart, who was once his boatswain, and had at this time a ketch of his own. With him King made an agreement to keep the ketch at Tilbury, and gave him money, which he had no sooner received that he gave information of the design to Mr. William Herbert, and it was then made known to the Government. When Raleigh arrived he was told by King that they could not be ready to go off, as he had hoped, that night. Stukely now, for his own security, obtained a warrant, authorising him to dissemble with his prisoner, and seemingly give in to any device for his escape.f A sus- picion that his father had been greatly defrauded by Sir Walter in the distribution of some prize-money rankled in Stukely's mind, and reconciled him for vengeance' sake to the base part in which he was now engaged ; and he performed that part with so much success, that Raleigh thought there was no going without having him as his companion ; and telling King this, appointed the Tower Dock as their meeting- place. There accordingly King went with two wherries, and thither Raleigh repaired, having put on a false beard, and a hat with a green hat-band. Stukely, young Stukely, and his own page were with him. In reply to their question. King told them that all was ready, and that the cloak, bag and four pistols were in the boat. Stukely then saluted him, and asked whether he had not thus far shown himself an honest man. To which King replied he hoped he would continue so, not as yet distrusting him.| After they had embarked and divided the pistols, they had * Cayley, ii., 443-445- t " For," says Oldys, *' though Raleigh might not have been secured in a direct and undisguised manner, yet the glory was to do it insidiously, and under the visor of friendship, being not more suitable to the genius of predominant power than necessary, on the present occasion, to give room for so many more little circumstances of objection as might occur to sup- ply the place of one wanting that should have been capital " (p. ccxviii). ij: Oldys, ccxvii, ccxviii. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 42S rowed but few strokes before the watermen told them that Mr. Herbert had lately taken boat, as if to go through the bridge, and that he had returned down the river after them. At this Raleigh expressed some apprehension ; Stukely en- couraged him, and they proceeded ; but Raleigh had then too much at stake to be easily satisfied, and calling King near, who was in the other boat, said he could not go forward unless he were sure of the watermen ; and he demanded of the men themselves, whether, if any should come to arrest them in the king's name, they would row forward, or return. Alarmed at this, as well they might be,* they answered that they knew nobody there but Captain King, who had hired them to Gravesend, and that they neither dared nor would go any farther. Upon this Raleigh said that in consequence of " a brabbling matter " with the Spanish ambassador, he must of necessity go to Tilbury to embark for the Low Countries, and that he would give them ten pieces of gold for their pains. Stukely then fell to cursing his own ill luck in having ventured his life and fortune with a man so full of doubts and fears. He swore that if the watermen would not row on he would kill them, and persuaded Raleigh there was no such danger as he apprehended, an opinion in which King agreed with him. When they drew near Greenwich a wherry crossed them, and Raleigh in his ominous fear said it came to espy them. King sought to dissuade him from this sup- position, and told him that if they could but reach Gravesend, he would hazard his life to get to Tilbury. These delays spent the tide, and the watermen said it was impossible to get to Gravesend before morning. Hereupon Raleigh would have landed at Purfleet, where Hart said he could procure him horses to Tilbury. Stukely was eager for this, but King said it was impossible at that time of night to get horses.-j" By this they had rowed about a mile beyond Woolwich ; and approaching two or three ketches. Hart began to doubt whether any of them were his. Upon this Sir Walter con- cluded that they were all betrayed. He examined Hart strictly, who pretended that he charged his men not to stir from Tilbury till he came down. Raleigh, however, would not be induced to proceed ; and hoping to get to his own * Oldys says, " The great boobies were so frightened that they cried ". Honest men would have been a more honest appellation, f Oldys, ccxviii. 424 ENGLISH SEAMEN house before morning, he bid the watermen turn back. They had rowed about a furlong back, when they espied another wherry, and hailed her, and the men on board said they were for the king. Raleigh perceived that they were some of Herbert's crew, and, consequently, that he was discovered ; he proposed, therefore, that Stukely, with a view of retaining him still in his custody, should declare to the watermen that he was his prisoner. This was done, and they now concerted how he might reach his house, and Stukely "save himself harmless" by averring that he had dissembled thus far in order to discover his intentions, and seize upon his papers. Stukely is said to have embraced him at this time, and made the utmost protestations of fidelity and friendship. When they were got back to Greenwich, Stukely said he durst not carry him to his house, but persuaded him to land ; the strange boat landed her men at the same time. Upon Green- wich Bridge Stukely told King, that if he would pretend to be consenting with him to betray his master, it would be for Sir Walter's good. The honest old captain, though Raleigh himself signified his approbation of the stratagem, refused ; thinking, he says, that he should thereby not only belie his own conscience, but make himself odious to the world. Stukely then arrested the captain in the king's name, and committed him to the charge of some of Herbert's men. All went to a tavern there, and by the way Raleigh was heard to say, "Sir Lewis, these actions will not turn out to your credit ! " In the morning, as they walked to the Tower, Raleigh said to his old friend, "Stukely and Cotterell have betrayed me. For your part you need be in fear of no danger. But as for me, I am the mark that is shot at." * All this has been represented as a plot devised by the Government for entrapping Sir Walter. An attempt to es- cape, under such circumstances, will always be interpreted as a confession of guilt, and James's ministers may have been well pleased when Raleigh, by such an attempt, made his own case worse. But it is preposterous to charge them with plotting his destruction. As for the persons by whom he was betrayed, Mannourie was a mere scoundrel, and Stukely wanted that sense of probity which will in all cases lead a man unerringly in the right path. If, on the first overture made to * Oldys, ccxix. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 425 him through Mannourie, he had at once told his prisoner that he should forthwith, as in duty bound, report it to the Govern- ment, he would have been free from reproach. But cunning was deemed policy in that age, and the double-dealing which he considered meritorious has rendered his name infamous. Raleigh did not yet give up all hope. He had still some powerful friends. The queen wrote to Buckingham in his behalf, addressing him in what was then the strange language of royal favour and familiarity, thus : — " Anna R. " My kind dog, " If I have any power or credit with you, I pray let me have a trial of it at this time, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the king that Sir Walter Raleigh's life may not be called in question. If you do it so that the success answer my expectation, assure yourself that I will take it extraordinary kindly at your hands, and rest one that wisheth you well, and desires you to continue still, as you have been, a true servant to your master."* Sir Walter wrote also himself to the favourite. "If 1 presume too much," said he, "I humbly beseech your lord- ship to pardon me, especially in presuming to write to so great and worthy a person, who hath been told that I have done him wrong. I heard it but of late ; but most happy had I been if I might have disproved that villainy against me, when there had been no suspicion that the desire to save my life had presented my excuse. But, my worthy lord, it is not to excuse myself that I now write. I cannot ; for I have now offended my sovereign lord. For all past, even all the world, and my very enemies, have lamented my loss, whom now, if His Majesty's mercy alone do not lament, I am lost. " Howsoever that which doth comfort my soul in this offence is, that even in the offence itself I had no other intent than His Majesty's service, and to make His Majesty know that my last enterprise was grounded upon a truth ; and which with one ship, speedily set out, I meant to have assured, or to * This letter was first published by Lord Hailes in his Metnorials of the Reign of James I. It was copied from the original by Archbishop Sancroft, 426 ENGLISH SEAMEN have died, being resolved, as it is well known, to have done it from Plymouth, had I not been restrained. Hereby I hoped not only to recover His Majesty's gracious opinion, but have destroyed all those malignant reports which had been spread of me. That this is true, that gentleman whom 1 so much trusted (my keeper), and to whom I opened my heart, cannot but testify, and wherein, if I cannot be believed living, ray death shall witness. Yea, that gentleman cannot but avow it, that when we came back toward London, I desired to save no other treasure than the exact description of those places in the Indies. That I meant to go hence as a dis- contented man, God, I trust, and mine own actions, will dissuade His Majesty, whom neither the loss of my estate, thirteen years' imprisonment, nor the denial of my pardon, could beat from his service ; and the opinion of being accounted a fool, or rather distracted by returning as I did, unpardoned, — balanced with my love to His Majesty's person and estate, — had no place at all in my heart. "It was the last severe letter from my lords for the speedy bringing of me up, and the impatience of dishonour, that first put me in fear of my life, or enjoying it in a perpetual imprison- ment, never to recover my reputation lost, which strengthened me in my late, and too late lamented resolution, if His Majesty's mercy do not abound ; if His Majesty do not pity ray age, and scorn to take the extremest and utmost advantage of my errors ; if His Majesty, in his great charity, do not make a difference between offences proceeding from a life- saving natural impulse, without all ill intent, and those of an ill heart ; and that your lordship, remarkable in the world for the nobleness of your disposition, do not vouchsafe to become my intercessor ; whereby your lordship shall bind a hundred gentlemen of my kindred to honour your memory, and bind me for all the time of that life which your lordship shall beg for me, to pray to God that you may ever prosper, and ever bind me to remain your most humble servant, "W. Raleigh." It is said the Earl of Clare, who was a fast friend to Raleigh, and had also some influence with Gondomar, thought he perceived an inclination in the Spanish ambassador to inter- cede for his life, if he would entreat him to do it. This was intimated to Raleigh, and with an assurance that there was no SIR WALTER RALEIGH 427 other way for his preservation. He paused a little, and then gave this answer, " I am neither so old, nor so infirm, but I could be content to live, and, therefore, this would I do, if I were sure it would do my business ; but if it fail, then I lose both my life and honour, and both these I will not part with ".* In this and in all that ensued, Raleigh's demeanour was answerable to the general opinion of his understanding and his courage. What course it became the Government to take was not so clear. To deliver him to the Spaniards for justice would seem derogatory to the king's authority, and to the national pride ; nor could it be overlooked in their considera- tions, that the merciless rigour with which the Spaniards treated those Englishmen who carried on an illicit traffic in their colonies was regarded by the people as justifying any measures of retaliation. For that reason, also, it would be highly unpopular to execute him as a pirate. Two months passed in deliberation, and in examining him in the Tower before the chancellor and other commissioners ; at length they delivered their opinion how the manner of proceeding against him might best stand with the king's justice and honour, if His Majesty should be pleased that the law should pass upon him. Presuming, then, that Sir Walter being attainted of high treason, which is the highest and last work of law, could not be drawn in question judicially for any offence since committed, they propounded two forms of pro- ceeding. First, that, with the warrant for his execution, the king should publish or print a narrative of his late crimes and offences; "which," said they, "albeit your majesty is not bound to give an account of your actions in these cases to any, but only to God alone, we humbly offer to your majesty's consideration, as well in respect of the great effluxion of time since his attainder and of his employment by your majesty's commission, as for that his late crimes and offences are not yet publicly known ". The other form, to which they rather inclined, was such a proceeding as was nearest a legal one ; it was to call him be- fore the whole council of state and the principal judges in the council chamber, some of the nobility and gentlemen of quality being admitted to hear the whole, as in like cases had been used ; openly to declare in that assembly that this form was * Biog. Brit., v., 3482. 428 ENGLISH SEAMEN holden, because Sir Walter was civilly dead ; then for His Majesty's council learned to make his charge ; after which, the examination read, and Sir Walter heard, and some con- fronted against him, if need were, then to withdraw and send him back, for that no sentence could be given against him ; and the lords of the council and the judges then to give their advice, whether in respect of these subsequent offences, and upon the whole matter, the king, if he so pleased, might not with justice and honour give warrant for his execution upon his attainder. All this they submitted to his princely wisdom and judgment. But James, against the expressed inclination of the commissioners, preferred that form which, being more summary, had least appearance of legal justice, and in a few days sent a privy seal to the judges to order immediate execution. This being a new case, they held a conference how to proceed ; and the result was, that he should be brought to the bar by a habeas corpus to the lieutenant of the Tower, and there demanded of if he could say any- thing why execution should not be awarded. Upon this the court of King's Bench was commanded to proceed against him according to law ; and the commissioners intimated the king's intention to Sir Walter, and admonished him to prepare for death. Accordingly Raleigh was taken out of bed, at eight in the morning, in an ague fit, and conveyed from the Tower to the King's Bench bar. The attorney-general, Yelverton, required an order for the execution of the former judgment, and the prisoner was asked what he could say for himself. He replied, '' All I can say is this, that the judgment which I received to die so long since, I hope it cannot now be strained to take away my life ; for that since it was His Majesty's pleasure to grant me a commission wherein I had power, as marshal, over the life and death of others, so, under favour, I presume I am discharged of that judgment. For by that commission I departed the land, and undertook a journey, to honour my sovereign and to enrich his kingdom with gold, of the ore whereof this hand hath found and taken in Guiana ; but the voyage, notwithstanding my endeavours, had no other success but what was fatal to me, — the loss of my son and wasting of my whole estate." Then, as he would have proceeded, the lord chief justice interrupted him, saying, "his commission could not help him ; he was not pardoned by it ; for in cases SIR WALTER RALEIGH 429 of treason the pardon must be by special words, and not implicitly : unless he could say something else to the purpose, they must give execution ". Raleigh replied, " If your opinion be so, my lord, I am satisfied, and so put myself on the mercy of the king, who I know is gracious ; and, under favour, I must say I hope he will be pleased to take commiseration upon me, as concerning this judgment which is so long past, and which I think here are some could witness — nay. His Majesty was of opinion — that I had hard measure therein ". Then the lord chief justice addressed him thus : " Sir Walter Raleigh, you must remember yourself you had an honourable trial, and so were justly convicted ; and it were wisdom in you now to submit yourself, and to confess your offence did justly draw upon you that judgment which was then pronounced against you : wherefore I pray you attend what I shall say unto you. I am here called to grant execu- tion upon the judgment given you fifteen years since ; all which time you have been as a dead man in the law, and might at any minute have been cut off, but the king in mercy spared you. You might think it heavy if this were done in cold blood, to call you to execution ; but it is not so : for new offences have stirred up His Majesty's justice to remember to revive what the law hath formerly cast upon you. I know 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 heretofore 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 that you can apply unto your- self far better than I am able to give you : yet will I, with the good neighbours in the Gospel (who, finding one in the way wounded and distressed, poured oil into his wounds and refreshed him), give you the oil of comfort, though, 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 tormented, sorrow would not content you ; and yet the sorrow for your sins would be an everlasting comfort to you. You must do as that valiant captain did, who, perceiving himself in danger, said, * Death, thou expectest me ; but, maugre thy spite, I expect thee '. Fear not deatli too much, nor fear death too little : not too much, lest you 430 ENGLISH SEAMEN fail in your hopes ; not too little, lest you die presumptuously. And here must conclude with my prayer to God that He would have mercy on your soul." He ended with these words — '^Execution is granted ". Raleigh concluded this act of his tragedy by asking thus much favour, that he might not be cut off suddenly ; " For I have something," said he, ''to do in discharge of my con- science, and something to satisfy His Majesty in, something to satisfy the world in ; and I desire I may be heard at the day of my death. And here I take God to be my judge, before whom I shall shortly appear, I was never disloyal to His Majesty ; which I will justify when I shall not fear the face of any king on earth. And so I beseech you all to pray for me."* The time for which he asked was not given him, and the next day was appointed for his execution. He received the sacrament from the Dean of Westminster's hands, and at nine in the morning of Thursday, the 29th of October, was brought by the sheriffs from the gatehouse near to a scaffold erected in Old Palace Yard- It was on that great civic holiday, the Lord Mayor's Day, which, probably, never before nor since was saddened by a public execution. He had on " a wrought nightcap under his hat, a ruff band, a black wrought velvet nightgown, over a hair-coloured satin doublet, and a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches, and ash-coloured silk stockings". As he was on the way from the prison, a bald old man pressed so forward among those who thronged to see him, that Sir Walter took notice of it, and asked him whether he would have aught of him. The old man answered that he only wanted to see him, and to pray God to have mercy upon his soul. "I thank thee, good friend," replied Sir Walter, "and am sorry I have no better thing to return thee for thy good-will ; but take this nightcap, for thou hast more need of it now than I." "There appeared not," says an eye-witness, "the least alteration in him, either in his voice or countenance ; but he seemed as free from all manner of apprehension as if he had been come thither rather to be a spectator than a sufferer ; nay, the beholders seemed much more sensible than did he." He had perhaps been more excited, and certainly appeared to less advantage, at Essex's * $tate Trials, SIR WALTER RALEIGH 4,31 execution than at his own. He saluted the lords and gentle- men of his acquaintance ; and when proclamation for silence was made, he said, '* I desire to be borne withal, for this is the third day of my fever ; and if I shall show any weakness, I beseech you to attribute it to my malady, for this is the hour in which it is wont to come ". Looking then toward a window where some of the lords were seated, he proceeded to say, " I thank God of His infinite goodness that He hath brought me to die in the light, and not in darkness ". But fearing that his voice would not well reach them, he requested them to approach nearer, because what he had then to say he wished the whole world to be acquainted with. Upon this. Lord Arundel and others came to the scaffold. Raleigh then again thanked God that He had brought him into the light to die, and not suffered him to die in the dark prison of the Tower, where he had suffered a great deal of misery and cruel sickness. " And I thank God," said he, " that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed God it might not, that I might clear myself of some accus- ations laid to my charge, and leave behind me the testimony of a true heart both to my king and country." The first imputation from which he desired to clear himself was that he had had some plot with France and a commission from the French king, charges which, from his intended flight to that country, he admitted that the king had some reason to enter- tain. ''For a man," said he, "to call God to witness to a falsehood at any time is a grievous sin, and what shall he hope for at the tribunal day of judgment .'' But to call God to witness to a falsehood at the time of death, is far more grievous and impious. A man that so doth cannot have salvation, for he hath no time for repentance; and what should I expect, that am now going to render an account of my faith } I do, therefore, call God to witness, as I hope to be saved, and as I hope to see Him in His kingdom, which I hope will be within this quarter of this hour, I never had any commission from the French king, nor ever saw the French king's handwriting in all my life ; neither knew I that there was an agent, nor what he was, till I met him in my gallery at my lodging uiilooked for. If I speak not true, O, Lord, let me never enter into Thy kingdona." Denying, then, Mannourie's accusation that he had spoken disloyally of the king, "My accuser," said he, "was a base 432 ENGLISH SEAMEN Frenchman, a runagate fellow, one that hath no dwelling, a kind of a chemical fellow, one that I knew to be perfidious. But in this I speak now what have I to do with kings ? I have nothing to do with them, neither do I fear them. I have only now to do with our God, in whose presence I stand. Therefore, as I hope to be saved at the last day, I never spake dishonourably, disloyally, or dishonestly of His Majesty, neither to this Frenchman nor to any other, neither had I ever a thought of ill of His Majesty in all my life. Therefore, I cannot but think it strange that this Frenchman, being so base and mean a fellow, should be so far credited as he hath been. I confess I did attempt to escape ; I cannot excuse it : but it was only to save my life. And I do likewise confess I did dissemble and feign myself sick at Salisbury ; but 1 hope it was no sin. For the Prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall down upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies, and it was not imputed unto him. So in what I did I intended no ill, but to prolong time till His Majesty came, hoping for some commiseration from him. But I forgive the Frenchman and Sir Lewis Stukely with all my heart ; for I have received the sacra- ment this morning of the Dean of Westminster, and I have forgiven all men. But that they are perfidious, I am bound in charity to speak, that all men may take heed of them." He then solemnly denied that he had ever said or done certain of the things which were testified against him, looking over his notes of remembrance as he passed from one point to another. And turning to the Earl of Arundel, he said, " My lord, being in the gallery of my ship, at my departure, I remember your honour took me by the hand, and said you would request me one thing : that was, whether I made a good voyage or bad, I should return again unto England ; which I then promised, and gave you my faith I would". " And so you did," answered the earl : " it is true, these were the last words I spake unto you." After briefly noticing some other slanders, he concluded thus : " I am now at this instant to render my account to God, and I protest, as I shall appear before Him, this that I have spoken is true. Only I will borrow a little more time of Mr. Sheriff, for I may not detain him too long. And herein I shall speak of the imputation laid upon me, that I should be a persecutor of my Lord of SIR WALTER RALEIGH 433 Essex ; that I rejoiced in his death, and stood in a window over against him when he suffered, and puffed out tobacco in disdain of him : whereas, God I take for witness, I shed tears for him when he died. And as I hope to look God in the face hereafter, my Lord of Essex did not see my face at the time of his death ; for I was afar off in the armoury, where I saw him, but he saw not me. I confess, indeed, I was of a contrary faction ; but I knew my Lord of Essex was a noble gentleman, and that it would be worse with me when he was gone. For I got the hate of those who wished me well before ; and those that set me against him afterwards set themselves against me, and were my greatest enemies. And my soul hath many times been grieved that I was not nearer him when he died, because, as I understood afterwards, he asked for me at his death, to have been reconciled unto me. " And now I entreat you all to join with me in prayer to the great God of heaven, whom I have grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, and have lived a sinful life in all sinful callings ; for I have been a soldier-captain, a sea- captain, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness 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 you all, making my peace with God." "This done, he embraced all the lords and others of his friends then present, with most courtly compliments of dis- course," says a spectator, "as if he had met them at some feast." He requested Lord Arundel to entreat the king that no writings defamatory of him might be published after his death ; and added, " I have a long journey to go, and there- fore I will take my leave ". His money, his hat, and other trifles, he distributed among his attendants. The scaffold was cleared, and having taken off his gown and doublet, he asked the executioner to show him the axe. The man, who had some touch of humanity, seemed to hesitate ; and Raleigh said, " I prithee let me see it ! Dost thou think I am afraid of it .•* " He took it and felt the edge. " It is a sharp medicine," said he ; " but this is that that will cure all sorrows ; " and he kissed it and laid it down. He then went to the corner of the scaffold, desired all the people to pray for him in this severe trial, and kneeling down he was long in silent prayer. And now he began to make ready for the block, and first laid ^8 434 ENGLISH SEAMEN himself down to try how the block fitted him. When he rose the executioner knelt and asked his forgiveness ; this was readily given, and laying his hand on the man's shoulder, Raleigh requested him not to strike till he should lift up his hand as a token, "and then," said he, '^fear not, but strike home". So he laid himself down. The headsman directed him to lay his face towards the east ; he replied, " No matter how the head lie, so the heart be right ". A little while he remained in prayer, then lifted his hand ; and as the signal was not instantly obeyed, he called aloud, " Strike, strike ! " and so at two strokes was delivered from his pain. The great efflux of blood astonished the spectators, and they inferred that with so vigorous a constitution as this circumstance was supposed to imply, he might have attained to a great old age. The head, after the customary form of showing it at either side of the scaffold, was put into a red leathern bag ; his gown was thrown over it, and it was conveyed away in a mourning coach. His widow piously preserved it during the nine and twenty years that she survived him, and it is supposed to have been buried with their son Carew at West Horsley in Surrey. The body was interred in St. Margaret's Church, hard by the place of execution. No other act of James's life has entailed upon him so much reproach as his conduct towards Raleigh ; and yet well would it be for him if nothing worse could be charged to his account. "He leaves it," said the declaration, " to the world to judge, how he could either have satisfied his own justice, or yet make the uprightness of his intentions appear to his dearest brother the King of Spain, if he had not by a legal punishment of the offender given an example, as well of terror to all his other subjects, not to abuse his gracious meanings in taking the contrary courses for the attaining to their own unlawful ends, as also of demonstration to all other foreign princes and states, whereby they might rest assured of His Majesty's honourable proceeding with them, when any the like case shall occur : by which means he may the more assuredly expect and claim an honourable concurrence and a reciprocal correspondence from them upon any the like occasion. Such, however, had been the curious infelicity of James's kingcraft upon this oc- casion, that he gave the character of illegality to an act of justice, and rendered his own instruments odious, and by SIR WALTER RALEIGH 4S5 means of Stukely's treachery made Raleigh appear an injured man. Moreover, by his own showing, he seemed to have been actuated less by the sense of probity and good faith than by the desire of gratifying the court of Spain at any cost. His agent at Madrid, when he began to perceive that the Spanish match was not likely to be effected, was instructed to let that State know that they should be looked upon as the most un- worthy people in the world, if they did not act with sincerity, since the king had given so many testimonies of his ; and now of late by causing Sir Walter Raleigh to be put to death, chiefly for the giving them satisfaction. Farther, to let them see how, in many actions of late. His Majesty had strained upon the affections of his people ; and especially in this last concerning Raleigh, who died with a great deal of courage and constancy. Lastly, that he should let them know how able a man Sir Walter Raleigh was to have done him service : yet, to give them content, he had not spared him ; when, by preserving him, he might have given great satisfaction to his subjects, and had at command, upon all occasions, as useful a man as served any prince in Christendom." Raleigh, then, may be deemed fortunate in the manner of his death ; for had he been left to die in prison, he would have been unpitied, and had he escaped to France, he would have been an unre- garded fugitive. Raleigh was, beyond all doubt, one of the most eminent persons in an age which was extraordinarily prolific of great men. He is equally distinguished in the naval and in the literary history of his country. It is not the least remarkable circumstance relating to him, that though all his colonial enterprises were unfortunate, they should incidentally have produced consequences of greater benefit to his country, than if they had proved successful. For he it was who brought tobacco into general use, — an article of common luxury, from which a large revenue has been derived since an impost was first laid upon it to the present time. And Raleigh it was by whom potatoes were first introduced into Ireland, where they were valued only as an exotic plant possessed of some fancied qualities. Little was it then imagined that when this root should be brought from Ireland into Lancashire, it would soon spread over the kingdom, and become of more importance to the community than any other single article of food, excepting bread, if indeed bread is to be excepted. 436 ENGLISH SEAMEN These verses were found in the Bible which Raleigh had with him in the Gate House ; and they are believed to have been written the night before his execution : — " Even such is Time, who takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have. And pays us but with earth and dust : Who in the dark and silent grave. When we have wandered all our ways. Shuts up the story of our days. But from that earth, that grave and dust, The Lord shall raise me up, I trust." NOTES ^ SIR RICHARD HAWKINS Fenton's Voyage The Edward Fenton whose voyage is here briefly told by Southey was a man of some mark, and a typical Elizabethan. He was the son of Henry Fenton of Fenton in Nottinghamshire, and brother of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, who gained some distinction in letters mainly by translating Guicciardini's History of The Wars of Italy, not from the Italian, but after the manner of the time, from the French version, and also by service in Ireland. The brothers sold their inheritance, and sought their fortune at court and in the wars. Edward was himself an author in the translating way. His Cer- taine Secrete Wonders of Nature is a version of the Histoires Prodigieuses of Pierre Bonisteau called Launay. The authorship has been disputed apparently on no solid grounds. He served under Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland, against Shane O'Neil in 1566, commanded the Gabriel in iro- bisher's second voyage to find a north-west passage, 1577, went as second in command of the third expedition in 1578, and was once more employed in Ireland on his return. The unsuccessful "voyage to the East Indies and Cathay " was to have been commanded by Drake, who had just re- turned from sailing round the world. The nomination of Fenton was at least partly due to the patronage of Leicester. The failure of the expedi- tion must be attributed in a considerable measure to the violent temper of the commander, his instability and his jealousy of his subordinates, William Hawkins, a member of the famous Plymouth family, and Captain Carlyle or Carlisle, the officer in charge of the soldiers. He was accused by Hawkins of intending to seize St. Helena, and " make himself king thereof". These wild schemes of ambition sprouted freely in that ad- venturous age, as we know from the example of Stukeley. But the bold Sea Rovers were not scrupulous in their mutual accusations, and Fenton is also reported to have put Hawkins in irons, and to have threatened to stab him, if he revealed awkward secrets on his return. They were con- nected, for Fenton married Thomazin, a daughter of Benjamin Gonson, treasurer of the navy, who was also father-in-law to Sir John Hawkins. The council, which had to listen to many such tales, can have paid this one no particular attention, for Fenton was named captain of the Mary Rose, a capital ship of 600 tons in the Armada war. He lived for the remainder of his life in Deptford, and died there in 1603. * Certain of these notes are Southey's and are marked by a capital S. (437) 4S8 ENGLISH SEAMEN Further Details Southey's life of Sir Richard is no more than a summary of the seaman's own Observations in his Voyage into the South Sea, most admirably executed and illustrated by references to Spanish authorities. Little more indeed is needed, for apart firom his disastrous cruise, and the record of it which he left, we have not much beyond dates, and mentions of his existence. The chief of these ought however to be given. He was the only son of Sir John's first marriage with Katherine Gonson. He was captain of the Duck Galliot in Drake's raid on the West Indies in 1535, of the queen's ship Swallow in the Armada war, and of the Crane in the expedition to the coast of Portugal jin 1590. After his surrender he was detained at Lima, and then sent to Spain in 1597. The fleet in which he sailed as a prisoner had a narrow escape from the Earl of Essex. As the superior authorities would not let him go he was imprisoned in Seville. In 1598 he escaped, but was retaken, and then sent to Madrid, where he was converted to Roman Catholicism. His detention lasted till 1602 when he was let go, probably on the payment of a ransom of £3000. In that year at any rate he complained in a letter to Robert Cecil that his stepmother, Margaret Vaughan, had refused or delayed to hand over the money left him by his father for the purpose. On his return he was knighted in July, 1603, amid the profuse distribution of honours which was one of the features of the reign of James I. The family of Hawkins were wealthy shipowners, and Sir Richard was Sir John's only legitimate son. He sat as member for Plymouth in 1604, and was named Vice-admiral of Devon, a post which then entailed a good deal of work in enforcing the droits of the admiralty, and protecting the coast against pirates. There are traces of futile efforts made by him to recover money from the Spaniards by the intervention of the Government. In 1614 there was some talk of having him to command one of the East India Company's voyages. His cousin William Hawkins was one of the pioneers of Eng- lish trade in the East. In 1620 he went as vice-admiral with Sir Robert Mansel in a very ill-conducted expedition against the Barbary pirates. On the 17th of April, 1622, he died of a fit of apoplexy while attending the council on business connected with this campaign. He left two sons and four daughters. His candid confession that he had trusted wholly to his dishonest gunner instead of seeing to the efficiency of his armaments for himself, leaves the impression that he was much better fitted for an explorer than for the command of a warship. The defence of the Dainty was not such a miraculous feat as Sir Richard would have us believe. She was built for war, and her crew had been for months together, while she was assailed by vessels built for trade, manned by a hasty collection of soldiers, and on Sir Richard's own showing less heavily gunned. In 1593 the Spaniards were only beginning to have a real war fleet, and none of the new vessels can have been in the South Seas. The action was in fact a long chase in which Don Beltran de Castro began by attempting to board, and was baffled by the better seamanship and heavier guns of the Eng- lish crew, and the greater handiness of the Dainty. As his ships were built for the coast trade only they were weak, and had no cover for the men on the upper deck, being, as Sir Richard very honestly confesses, "utterly without fights or defences" — that is to say bulwarks. It was only in the last resort th?it Pon Beltran fell back on his fegble artillery, NOTES 439 If the Dainty had not been foul from a long voyage, or had been in better fighting trim, she might have got clear away, and there would have been no occasion to make a song about the feat. The real distinction of Sir Richard is that he wrote the most illuminative account of the sea life of his time which we possess. His Observations contain errors on matters of fact due to lapses of memory, but the general picture is admirable, and the book proves him to have been a thinking man of much natural discern- ment. It is a standing disgrace both to the navy and the merchant service, that though he had shown how to keep crews in good health, no use was made of his experiments except in one of the early voyages of the East India Company. Our men were allowed to die of scurvy and other pre- ventable diseases by the thousand till after the middle of the eighteenth century, not because the powers that were did not know, but because they were careless. His Observations and much information about the family will be found reprinted, and collected in Nos. i and 57 of the publications of the Hakluyt Society. SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE Southey has told the story of Sir Richard Greenville, as he preferred to spell the name, or Greynvile, or Grenfell, or Granville, or Grenville (there are pedantic reasons for using all the forms, except the last which is the final recension) with even more than his usual sound sense. A few scattered facts have come to light since he wrote. It may be as well to point out that the descent of Sir Richard from Rollo is" family genealogy " in the unfavourable sense. But the family was ancient in Cornwall. His father Sir Roger was captain of the Mary Rose, and perished with her when she went down outside Portsmouth, in 1545, during the French invasion of that year. We know now that Lane, with whom he sailed on the Virginia voyage of 1585, described him as of " intolerable pride and insatiable ambition ". During the interval between his colonial ventures and the island voyage of 1591 he was employed as commissioner of works at Dover Harbour, and in preparing the defences of the western counties. THE EARL OF ESSEX Essex's Widow, p. 233 It appears, from the following sonnet, that this lady's third husband had the singular advantage of being remarkably like the second. "To the Right Honourable and loyal-hearted Lord, the Earl of Clanricard. — " Our English crown's approved Irish fi-iend That reign'st in our true love, for such thy truth Let thine own rare perfections thee commend. For perfect praise perfection still ensu'th. I never was so happy as to see thee. Much less to kaow thee whom I lonpj to see ; 440 ENGLISH SEAMEN But in thy predecessor did foresee thee, For, if fame fable not, much like you be. To add then to thy glory more bright beams, Love his, thy other self, with dearest love ; For she hath martyr'd been with grief's extremes, Dear innocent ! whose virtues all approve. Her love to thee doth argue thy high worth, Then love such love that sets thy glory forth." Davits of Hereford. — Restituta, iii., 253. — S. " To Say No More " These words which Southey quotes from his well-beloved Fuller, con- tain an allusion to the no doubt unfounded story that Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex of this creation, and father of Elizabeth's favourite had been poisoned by Leicester. Poor Earl Walter, a man of a vaguely romantic, speculative, and impractical turn, engaged in a number of disastrous ventures in Ireland, and died, as many thousands of English gentlemen and soldiers did, m the squalid and ferocious Irish wars, of dysentery. Dublin was the place and the date 22nd September, 1576. The countess, whose maiden name was Lettice Knollys or Knowles, and who was a kinswoman of the queen's, married Leicester after her husband's death, and it is not improbable that they had had an intrigue during his life. The queen was as usual exceedingly angry with the marriage, and refused to see her cousin except on one occasion. The reader who cares to inquire further may consult Parson's " The Jesuits' Great Collection of Scandal, and Scandalous Truth " {Leicester's Common- wealth). Young Essex at Court The queen had taken notice of Essex while he was still a boy. Part of the exaggerated favour she showed him from his first appearance in court may have been due to her settled policy of dividing her courtiers into rival factions in order to make them the more dependent on her own caprice. Queen Mary was for a time sent as prisoner to Essex' House at Chartley just before the closing scene — to his openly expressed annoy- ance, and though experienced lords of the council thought there was danger in putting her under the care of a young man. Essex escaped all peril from the now rather more than middle-aged Queen of Scots, because he was too exclusively employed about the still more elderly Elizabeth, who, partly to please herself, but unquestionably also to keep other adorers in their places, now chose to be attended in public by the new favourite only, and to sit up all night with him playing cards — if Anthony Bagot told the strict truth. Essex and the Cadiz Expedition In placing his account of the famous expedition to Cadiz in the life of Essex, and not in that of the Lord High Admiral Howard of Effingham, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, Southey has followed the generally ex- pressed opinion of the time. The earl's career and final ruin cannot be NOTES 441 understood unless we bear in mind that he rapidly earned a high measure of popularity with the " martial men " and the mob. They picked him out as a hero and popular leader, wrote him up, and sang his praises, thereby arousing the fears of the politicians about the queen, who assiduously fed her jealousy. It would be difficult to prove by known facts that Essex had more merit in the taking of the town than several of his colleagues. But the people would have it so. There can be no question that he was in the right in advising that the expedition should remain out longer in order to wait for the treasure-ships. His opinion was not followed, and the great prize was lost. During the angry disputes which followed the return of the expedition, he gained valuable credit with the queen by his display of intelligent zeal. It must be kept in mind that however glorious the taking of Cadiz looks to us now, the total result of the capture was a keen disappointment to Elizabeth. She had been led to hope that her treasury would benefit largely through the prizes taken. As a matter of fact the expenses were greater than the returns. The explanation must be sought, first in the failure to seize the treasure-ships, and then in the working of the distinction made between " plunder" and " prize". By the first was meant whatever officers and men were allowed to seize for themselves. By the second was signified whatever had to be thrown into a common stock, and divided pro rata when the queen's share had been deducted. It followed that every one thought of his own profit first of all, and that the common good was neglected. Moreover sailors and soldiers alike had a rooted, and if Monson and Sir R. Hawkins say sooth, perfectly justified belief that they were never fairly treated by the queen's officials when the division came to be made. It is certain that all ranks pilfered at Cadiz, with no more scruple than Elizabeth would have shown in defrauding them if they had been so candid as to bring their gains back in any way which would have allowed her to lay hands on them. We may note with some measure of languid interest that the fall of Cadiz was largely due to the sloth of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, our old friend of the Armada. He did nothing to put the town in a state of defence, dis- played utter want of spirit during the crisis, and made himself ridiculous by marching in with a great display after the English and their Dutch colleagues had sailed away with the booty. It is characteristic of the solemn futility of Philip II. that he had continued to employ the duke as captain-general in Andalusia after the miserable exhibition he made of himself in 1588. The reason apparently was that the king could not dismiss him without some discredit to himself. He would have confessed practically that the royal judgment was not infallible in its choice of officers. Essex in Ireland Southey's account of the earl's miserable history in Ireland is the weakest part of the life. He does not sufficiently bring out the fact that the great charge against the earl was the character of his " parley " with Tyrone in September, 1599. There were two meetings between them, the first, on the 6th September, strictly private, was in answer to a message from Tyrone, and took place at a ford on the river Lagan, now called the Anagh Clint, on the borders of Monaghan and Louth. Next day they met with six followers on either side, A treaty was discussed 442 ENGLISH SEAMEN and Essex listened to demands which he ought never to have entertained. The vi'hole story of his later years and his fall has been retold with equal care and sanity of criticism by Mr. Abbott in his Bacon and Essex. The reader may advantageously contrast him by comparison with Mr. Sped- ding's Bacon, bearing in mind that his great work is by |no means free from the Lues Boswelliana, where its hero's virtue is in question. SIR WALTER RALEIGH De Guiana Carmen Epicum, p. 333. This poem, signed with the initials G. C, is with sufficient certainty ascribed to Chapman. It consists of something less than two hundred lines, in blank verse ; the verse is not diversified by its pauses, but the paragraphs (of unequal length) are closed with a couplet in rhyme, — a practice not unusual in that age. The poet spared neither panegyric nor prophecy, but he was no true prophet. " Riches and conquest and renown I sing,^ — Riches with honour, conquest without blood, — Enough to seat the monarchy of earth, Like to Jove's eagle, on Eliza's hand. Guiana, whose rich feet are mines of gold. Whose forehead knocks against the roof of stars, Stands on her tiptoes at fair England looking, Kissing her hand, bowing her mighty breast. And every sign of all submission making. To be her sister, and the daughter both Of our most sacred maid, whose barrenness Is the true fruit of virtues that may yet Bear and bring forth anew in all perfection What heretofore savage corruption held In barbarous chaos ; and in this affair Became her father, mother, and her heir. '• Then, most admired sovereign, let your breath Go forth upon the waters, and create A golden world in this our iron age ; And be the prosperous forewind to a fleet, That, seconding your last, may go before it In all success of profit and renown. Doubt not but your election was divine, (As well by fate as your high judgment order 'd) To raise him with choice bounties, that could add Height to his height ; and like a liberal vine Not only bear his virtuous fruit aloft. Free from the press of squint-eyed envy's feet. But deck his gracious prop with golden bunches. And shroud it with broad leaves of Rule o'ergrown From all black tempests of invasion. NOTES 443 Then in the Thespiad's bright prophetic fount, Methinks I see our liege rise from her throne, Her cares and thoughts in steep amaze erected At the most rare endeavour of her power. And now she blesseth with her wonted graces The industrious knight, the soul of this exploit. Dismissing him to convoy of his stars. And now for love and honour of his worth, Our twice-born nobles bring him, bridegroom-like. That is espoused for virtue to his love. With feasts and music ravishing the air, To his Argolian fleet, where round about His bating colours English valour swarms In haste, as if Guianian Orinoque With his fell waters fell upon our shore. And now a wind as forward as their spirits Sets their glad feet on smooth Guiana's breast, Where (as if each man were an Orpheus) A world of savages fall tame before them. Storing their theft-free treasuries with gold. And there doth plenty crown their wealthy fields ; There learning cats no more his thriftless books. Nor valour, estridge-like, his iron arms ; Their beauty is no strumpet for her wants, Nor Gallique humours putrefy her blood ; But all our youth take Hymen's lights in hand, And fill each roof with honoured progeny : There makes society adamantine chains, And joins their hearts with wealth whom wealth disjoin'd ; There healthful recreations strew their meads, And make their mansions dance with neighbourhood That here were drowned in churlish avarice. And there do palaces and temples rise Out of the earth, and kiss the enamoured skies, Where New Britannia humbly kneels to heaven, The world to her, and both at her blest feet. In whom the circles of all empire meet." — S. Plague of Crickets at St. Thomas's, p. 343. Yrala met with a tribe in Paraguay, whose huts were infested with a species of cricket that consumed all their skins and other articles of clothing; and they kept tame ducks to devour these vermin. Cabeza de Vaca mentions this in his Commentaries {Hist, of Brazil, i., 127). Colonel Hippisley describes a noxious creature in this part of Guiana, which I have not seen noticed by any other writer. " In many of the huts or habitations," he says, *' in the different Indian villages as you pass up the river, is to be found the devil-sticker. It is of a spongey soft nature, and smooth skin, not unlike the large slug of England. It is brought into the hut with the fire-wood, or it may creep in from the outside unperceived. It, however, crawls up the side wall ; and getting on the edge of the rafters of the ceiling, to which it adheres, it looks like 444 ENGLISH SEAMEN a small ball, or more properly like the slug coiled up. It is frequently known to drop from its hold without being molested ; and wherever it falls it throws out from its body five or six fangs, which are barbed like a fish-hook, and into whatever softer material than stone or brick it chances to fall these fangs enter ; nor can it be removed unless by cutting the animal off, and picking the prongs out of the substance into which they are so firmly fastened. When they fall on the person of those who happen to sit or stand underneath, the consequence is dreadful. I saw one man who an hour or two before had one of those devils alight on his hand, and he was obliged to have it cut off, and the claws and fangs removed by picking them out of his flesh with the point of a large needle. His hand was immoderately swelled, and very painful ; but an immersion in warm oil, or fat, removed the pain, and restored the hand to its usual appearance" {Narrative of the Expedition to the Orinoco and Apury in 1817, pp. 349-350).— S. Raleigh popular in Cornwall, p. 351. Carew relates two cases in which Sir Walter's influence was exerted to the great advantage of the county. • ■ " There are seventeen manors appertaining to the duchy of Cornwall, who do every seventh year take their holdings (so they term them) of certain commissioners sent for the purpose, and have continued this use for the best part of three hundred years ; through which they reckon a kind of inheritable estate accrued unto them. But this long prescription notwithstanding, a more busy than well occupied person, not long sith- ence, by getting a checquer lease of one or two such tenements, called the whole right in question : and albeit God denied his bad mind any good success, yet another taking up these broken titles to salve himself of a desperate debt, prosecuted the same so far forth, as he brought it to the jutty of a nisi prius. Hereon certain gentlemen were chosen, and requested by the tenants to become suitors for stopping this gap, before it had made an irremediable breach. They repaired to London accordingly, and prepared a petition to the then lord treasurer, Burleigh, His lordship called unto him the chancellor and coife barons of the exchequer, and took a private hearing of the cause. It was then manifestly proved before them, that besides this long continuance, and the importance (as that which touched the undoing of more than a thousand persons), her high- ness possessed no other lands that yielded her so large a benefit in rents, fines, heriots, and other perquisites. These reasons found favourable allowance, but could obtain no thorough discharge, until the gentlemen became suppliants to Her Majesty's own person, who, with her native and supernatural bounty, vouchsafed us gracious audience ; testified her great dislike of the attemptor, and gave express orders for staying of the attempt : since which time this barking dog hath been muzzled. May it please God to award him an utter choaking, that he never have power to bite again ! " Herein we were beholden to Sir Walter Raleigh's earnest writing, who was then in the country, to Sir Henry Killigrew's sound advice ; and to Master William Killigrew's painful soliciting (being the most kind patron of all his country and countrymen in affairs at court)" {Survey of Cornwall, 36, 37), NOTES 445 •' It should seem that the first earls bare a heavy hand in command over the subjects; for both divers ancient records, as I have learned, make mention of tributes imposed (almost) upon everything of profit ; and it may be farther gathered in that as well towns as particular persons were fain to procure charters and grants from them for corporations, fairs, markets, taking or freeing from tolls, mines, fishing, fowling, hawking, hunting, and what not ; so as upon the matter the plight of a Cornish inhabitant and a French peasant did differ very little. Which bondage one, not long ago, sought in part to re-establish, under pretence of receiving a rent decayed ever since g Hen. 2, and advancing His Majesty's profit; and to this end procured letters patent that none should salt, dry, or pack any fish in Devon or Cornwall, without his licence; and warrant : a matter that would by consequence have made him an absolute disposer of all the western shipping and traffic, and their sea and land dependants : — few words, but folding up a multitude of inconveniences to Her Majesty, and the whole commonwealth. Where- fore the Cornish justices of the peace became humble suitors to the lords of her highness's privy council for a necessary and speedy redress herein, and through the never-failing forwardness and backing of Sir Walter Raleigh, obtained a revocation. Howbeit this ill weed, rather cut off by the ground than plucked up by the root, once, yea, twice or thrice, grew forth again ; but yet, maugre the warmers and waterers, hath by Her Majesty's gracious breath been even parched up, and (as is hoped) will never shoot out hereafter; at least it shall find an united resistance of most earnest suit and frequent reasons to beat it down " (Survey of Corn- wall, 79, 80).— S. Sir Walter Raleigh's Petition to the Queen Mr. David Laing, among whose valuable extracts from the Hawthorn- den manuscripts this poem was (for the first time) printed, says truly that " it bears intrinsic marks of being genuine, which cannot be said of several other poems which have been ascribed to him ". He supposes it to have been written after Raleigh's last commitment to the Tower, in 1618. " O had Truth power, the guiltless could not fall, Malice win glory, or Revenge triumph ; But Truth alone cannot encounter all. " Mercy is fled to God, which mercy made, Compassion dead. Faith turn'd to policy ; Friends know not those who sit in Sorrow's shade. " For what we sometime were, we are no more ; Fortune hath changed our shape, and Destiny Defaced the weary form he had before. " All love and all desert of former times Malice hath covered from my sovereign's eyes. And largely laid abroad supposed crimes. " But kings call not to mind what vassals were. But know them now as Envy hath described them ; So can I look on no side firom Despair. , 446 ENGiLISH SEAMEN ** Cold walls, to you I speak, but you are senseless ; Celestial Powers, you hear, but have determined, And shall determine, to my greatest happiness. ** Then unto whom shall I unfold my wrongs. Cast down my tears, or hold up folded hands ? To her to whom remorse doth most belong ; '♦ To her who is the first, and may alone Be justly call'd the empress of the Britons ! Who should have mercy, if a queen have none ? " Save those that would have died for your defence I Save him whose thoughts no treason ever tainted ! For, lo ! destruction is no recompense. " If I have sold my duty (sold my faith) To strangers (which was only due to one). No thing I should esteem so dear as death ; •' But if both God and time shall make you know That I your humblest vassal am opprest, Then cast your eyes on undeserved woe : " That I and mine may never mourn the miss Of her we had (but praise our living queen), Who brings us equal, if not greater bliss." — S. Early Life Some further details of Raleigh's early life, which we may consider as having ended with his establishment at court in 1581, have been dis- covered since Southey wrote. The name, as we all know, is even more diversely spelt than Grenville. The form Raleigh, adopted by Southey and therefore used here, was long general. Now there is a preference for Ralegh. His own practice was not consistent. To judge by King James's pun, '* Mon I have heard of you but rawly," it was pronounced as if it had been written Rawley, in which shape it is to be met with. Mr. Gosse has found that Sir Walter — as yet only plain Mr. — was living in Islington, then and long afterwards a pleasant village on the rising ground at the beginning of the great north road from London, in 1577, and that he was a candidate for acceptance at court. After his return from accompanying Sir Humphrey Gilbert in the voyage of 1578, he became a courtier. His introduction to the scene where political and social fortunes could alone be made in the reign of Elizabeth was due to the patronage of the Earl of Leicester. The queen's Sweet Robin was unquestionably a very evil personage, but he had a redeeming pre- ference for recruiting his followers from among able men. He had to confirm his position by placing his clients in places. It is a proof of his good sense, and a tribute to the queen's governing capacity, that they were expected to possess brains and character. At court Raleigh formed a species of friendship with the Earl of Oxford, Burleigh's worthless son- in-law. For him he carried a challenge to Sir Philip Sidney. The fight did not come off, mainly it seems because the earl would have preferred to NOTES 447 murder his rival. Raleigh's intelligence was too good to allow him to forward an enterprise which whether successful or not would probably have had unpleasant consequences for the great man, and would infallibly have been fatal to the small one. To murder as a political resource Raleigh had no more dislike than his contemporaries, native or foreign, who had no scruple when Irish rebels, Scotch enemies, the King of Spain, or the Guise were concerned, who for their part were ready to remove heretics in the same fashion. He openly advocated assassination as a means of pacifying Ireland. In later life he condemned duelling, but in his hot youth he was imprisoned for a fray with Sir Thomas Perrot on the 7th February, 1580, and in the following March was again in jail for coming to blows with one Wingfield. In June of this year he was in Ireland as captain of a company of a hundred men. When he had become a favourite Elizabeth allowed him to retain his company in order that he might be trained in the wars, and allowed him to perform his military duties by deputy. Southey is mistaken in supposing that the queen condemned the military execution at Smerwich. She was only offended because the Spanish and Italian officers were spared. It may be pointed out that Lord Grey's decision to save the officers who could pay for their lives, and put the rank and file who could not to the sword, was quite consistent with the military practice of the time. Raleigh's brief service in the Irish partisan wars has been told at length by Sir John Pope Hennessy {Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland). In 1581 he was sent home with despatches by Zouch, the Governor of Munster. Raleigh at Court Southey has repeated Fuller's stories about the cloak and the diamond as being Fuller's, and therefore entitled to just as much credit as the judicious reader chooses to give to tales collected by a romantic and genial gossip in the next century. There appears to be no reason to accept Naunton's testimony that Raleigh owed his position at court to the spirit and ability he displayed in a dispute with Lord Grey before the council. It is inconsistent with known facts. It was as the favourite of the middle period of the reign that Raleigh became a great man, and was enriched by monopolies in 1583, two years after he had left Ireland, by knighthood in 1584, by the wardenship of the Stannaries in 1585, by a grant of 40,000 acres of land in Ireland in 1586, and by a share in the spoils of Babington and his fellow-conspirators in 1587. In this very year, his favour having reached its height, first came to a stay, and then began to decline before the genius of Essex. In the Armada year, when Sir Walter's movements are obscure, he received a challenge from his rival, but this fight like so many others we hear of ended in high words. He was in Ireland in 1588 with Sir R. Grenville, his cousin, under a court cloud, and was back there in 1589. Southey was in error in think- ing that he took part in the expedition of '89 to the court of Portugal. From this time his favour at court declined, and although Elizabeth did not deprive him of his place as captain of the guard, and allowed him to be about her in after years, he never was again on his former footing. He was to have gone with Lord Thomas Howard in the expedition to the Isles in 1591, but his place was taken by Grenville. In 1592 he accompanied Cumberland and Frobisher as far as Cape Finisterre, and 448 ENGLISH SEAMEN then returned by order. It was in June that he was arrested at his London residence, Durham House, which like the Manor of Sherburne was part of the plunder of the Church, for having debauched Elizabeth Throgmorton, the maid of honour whom he afterwards married. Durham House, which had cost him much money, was reclaimed by the Church on the accession of James. Raleigh's " Atheism" One of the charges constantly brought against Raleigh, before his long imprisonment and his known hostility to Spain had turned the fierce popular hatred once felt for him to sympathy, was his supposed irreligion. It was a not uncommon charge in that age. We have no real evidence to go on. Southey merely alludes to the subject in saying that if Sir Walter "was not belied," he was of dubious orthodoxy. It is highly credible that this man, " so wary held and wise," did in fact *' scarce receive for gospel what the Church believed ". His name was mentioned in the inquisition into the doings and sayings of a supposed atheistical society, to which Marlowe also belonged, conducted by Lord Keeper Puckering. A special commission was afterwards appointed to make an inquiry, under the presidency of Thomas Howard, Viscount Bindon. No report is in existence. In 1594 Raleigh had long and eager conference with the Jesuit Cornelius in prison. Raleigh and Antonio de Berrio Some rather curious questions of minor importance in the biography of Raleigh are connected with the name of the Spanish colonial governor, Antonio de Berrio. One of them may be defined as belonging to the field of morality. The reader of the Discoverie of Guiana, or even only of Southey's ample quotation from that most brilliant example of the Elizabethan literature of adventure, will remember that our countryman speaks of Don Antonio in tones of rather disconcerting variety. Striking passages in the Discoverie are devoted to impassioned denunciations of the Spaniard's barbarity to the Indians. Yet when he actually meets the author of these crimes, Raleigh describes him as a gentleman very valiant and liberal, of great assuredness and a great heart, and treats him according to his quality. This same main be it observed is also said by Raleigh to have behaved treacherously to Captain Whiddon when he was exploring on the coast of Trinidad in the year before Raleigh's own voyage. A whole string of queries is suggested by these passages in the Discoverie. Mr. Gosse, in his life of Raleigh, is surprised that our hero should have taken friendly notice of so ferocious a personage. From our point of view — that of a more humane age, which thinks the telling of the truth an obligation — the wonder is natural. But Raleigh, who had served his apprenticeship in those Irish wars of his day which were no whit less savage than the campaigns of the Spanish Conquistadores, was not so sincerely indignant with Berrio as he thought fit to profess to be, when he was spiriting up his countrymen to go in search of the Golden Kingdom of Manoa. Moreover, as we know from the history of his connection with Cobham, he could be on very confidential terms with men whom he still accused of utter baseness. But did he really take Berrio prisoner at the island of Trinidad ? And what is the meaning of the story about i NOTES 449 Captain Whiddon ? Southey expresses his doubts as to the capture, and though Sir Robert Schomburg cannot understand his scepticism, I am inclined to hold that his prudence and his remarkable knowledge of the Spanish authorities led him right as they so often did. The main if not the only Spanish authority is the Friar Pedro Simon, the author of the Noticias. Now Simon, who is a transparently honest writer, who was nearly a grown man at the time, who came from his native town of Cuenca in Spain to South America while the contemporaries of Berrio were alive, and who was inexhaustibly curious as to the history of the previous two generations, has not a word to say about the capture of the governor. He tells the story of the taking of Caraccas by Preston in the year of Raleigh's voyage at length. He is copious about the final disastrous appearance of Sir Walter. As Southey's quotations show he did not spare Berrio when he comes to tell the cruel story of the colonists brought over by Domingo de Vera. Why should he have concealed an episode which must have been notorious ? But there is another reason for being doubtful. When Antonio de Berrio acquired the right of settling Guiana with the governorship for two lives, by his marriage with the niece of Jiminez de Quesada, the conqueror of New Granada, the coast was not yet inhabited by Spaniards. An attempt had been made at an earlier period to settle Trinidad, and had failed. He sent Domingo de Vera to Spain to seek for colonists. Pedro Simon is not so lucid or so exact in his dates as could be wished, but after carefully reading his narrative I have come to the same conclusion as Southey, namely, that there is no ground for believing that Berrio was in Trinidad. His regular residence was at the first settlement of St. Thomas on the mainland, and there he was when Domingo de Vera returned from Spain with his un- happy colonists after Raleigh had left the coast. Somebody was no doubt taken on the island. Southey supposes that there were mutineers there. Perhaps, but that the governor was among the Spaniards found in Trinidad, who can have been but a small handful, I cannot believe. Another consideration ought it seems to me to suggest itself to every one. If Raleigh captured so important a person as Berrio, how came he to let his prize go ? Why did he not bring the governor to England to be held for ransom, and as proof of what he himself had done ? This would have been the regular course. Yet after the conversation about Manoa Berrio's name drops out altogether. If Raleigh found that his prisoner was not the governor, this sudden disappearance is quite intelligible, but it cannot be explained in any other way. Why then did he continue to assert that he had in fact captured Berrio ? The answer I fear must be that Raleigh's willingness and capacity to lie when it suited his purpose are established by much and weighty evidence. The fiction looked better than the truth, and could not be instantly confuted. We have only his word for it all, and that is not enough. As much may be said about the incredible tale of Captain Whiddon's voyage of peaceful exploration at a time when Spain and England were at war, and when the Spaniards claimed to be masters of all to the west of Pope Alexander's line of demarcation. If Berrio had indeed been in Trinidad when Whiddon came, and strong enough to act in the way described, he would have stood on no terms with a " pirata Ingles". The truth, what- ever it was, had been arranged by Raleigh to produce prejudice, just as he romanced about the climate and the eloquent Indian chiefs. 29 450 ENGLISH SEAMEN Some Minor Points After the return from Guiana, Raleigh returned to his service about the court, and to employment on missions of minor importance. His life in these years was a pale copy of the time of his glory. A general incredu- lity was shown to his glowing picture of Guiana, and he found no response to his appeal for recruits to share in the search for El Dorado. Such favour as he secured was given less to his own merits, than for his known rivalry with Essex, who was now plunging to ruin. Between the two men there were alternations of reconciliation and quarrel. There could, however, be no doubt as to the side on which Raleigh would be found. The bitter popular hatred loudly avowed for him at the end of the queen's reign was due at least as much to his known enmity to the earl as to his supposed atheism and his arrogance. In 1600 he was shot at by one Christopher Blunt — perhaps the stepfather of Essex — a very worthless person. In 1602 his fellow-adventurer beyond the line, the gallant Amyas Preston, challenged him to a duel, and Raleigh arranged his affairs in expectation of a serious encounter, but they did not meet. Preston was a fervent partisan of Essex, and singled out Raleigh as his patron's peculiar enemy. The earl was to be trusted to ruin himself with little help from foes, but there is in existence a letter in which Raleigh urges Robert Cecil, somewhat superfluously, and not magnanimously, to show no mercy. In 1602 he was embarrassed for money. He began to negotiate for the sale of his Irish lands to Richard Boyle. He also, on his own showing, undertook to act as broker for the good-for-nothing Cobham, and received jewels from him as security for the fees to be paid for services in obtaining a grant from the Crown. The Last Voyage A good deal of evidence has come to light since Southey wrote, and we are no longer under the necessity of saying that Raleigh's real inten- tions at this time (to wit when he sailed on his last voyage) must ever be matter of uncertainty. There can I think be no question that what he meant to do was first to secure his release from the Tower by promising to bring the necessitous king a vast mass of gold from Guiana without embroiling him in a quarrel with Spain. Secondly, to collect an armament and make a bold push for fortune beyond the line, by plundering the Spaniards ; thirdly, to provide himself with a refuge in France when the booty was secured, and it might have been dangerous to return ho^ne. We know that while he was assuring the king that he would sail peace- fully to a mine not in Spanish territory, avoid all hostility, and come quietly back, he was treating with Savoy concerning an attack on Genoa, and when this scheme fell through, that he entered into cor- respondence with the French ambassador in order to provide a refuge in France. After the failure at San Tomas, he proposed a filibustering voyage to his captains and men. They refused on the very reasonable grounds that if they succeeded in capturing the Spanish treasure-ships, which was doubtful, they would be hanged as pirates on reaching home. To take refuge in a French port might suit Raleigh, for whom the alternative was the Tower and the scaffold, but for them it would mean at the best beggary and exile. A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY METHUEN AND COMPANY: LONDON 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 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