GUIANA (1594-1595).
[Sidenote: _Continuance of Disgrace._]
[Sidenote: _A Project, and its Motive._]
Had not history preserved the memory of Ralegh's exile from Court, his
public life was so animated that the displeasure of the Queen need
hardly have been remarked. To himself the blight on his prospects was
always and dismally visible. The Queen had raised him from obscurity,
and afforded his genius scope for shining. Well as he understood the
value of his powers, he knew they derived still from her, as ten or a
dozen years before, their opportunity of exercise. He was not blind to
the jealousy of competitors, or to popular odium. As by an instinct of
life, of the working life which alone he prized, he was continually
striving to retrieve his fall by the ordinary devices of courtiers, and
not without gleams of hope. Nicholas Faunt had been private secretary to
Walsingham, and was therefore naturally of the Essex faction. He wrote
to Anthony Bacon in January, 1594, that Ralegh was expecting to be
nominated a Privy Councillor: 'And it is now feared of all honest men
that he shall presently come to the Court; yet it is well withstood. God
grant him some further resistance!' The further resistance came, whether
from rivals, or from the rankling anger in Elizabeth's breast. Nowhere
does it appear that he had speech of her. He continued to be forbidden
to perform in person the duties of Captain of the Guard. Between 1592
and 1597 they seem to have been discharged by John Best, described as
Champion of England. His disappointment was fortunate for his fame, if
not for his future tranquillity. In his enforced retirement he brooded
on schemes of maritime adventure. He determined to prove the
impossibility of suppressing him. His Panama project had been imputed to
his discovery that 'the Queen's love was beginning to decline.' That
could not then have been truly asserted. Naunton has similarly explained
the Guiana expedition:--'Finding his favour declining, he undertook a
new peregrination to leave that terra infirma of the Court for that of
the wars, and by declining himself, and by absence, to expel his and the
passion of his enemies; which in Court was a strange device of recovery,
but that he knew there was some ill office done him, that he durst not
attempt to mend any other ways than by going aside, thereby to teach
envy a new way of forgetfulness, and not so much as to think of him;
howsoever, he had it always in mind never to forget himself; and his
device took so well, that, at his return, he came in, as rams do by
going backwards, with the greater strength; and so continued to the last
in the Queen's grace.' Nothing, it is certain, ever was farther from
Ralegh's thoughts than a wish to be forgotten, whether by enemies or by
friends; yet Naunton's theory is true at bottom. The persistency of the
shadow at Court was as plain to Ralegh as to others. Its own merits
might else have recommended to him the Guiana expedition. But at this
especial juncture it was his engine for storming his way back into his
Sovereign's kindness.
[Sidenote: _Difficulties._]
Guiana had one important merit as a field for enterprise. It was known
to be free from European occupation, as well as reputed to be rich.
Camden describes it as 'aurifera Guiana ab Hispanis decantata.' Many
Spanish expeditions, from the year 1531 onwards, had been fitted out to
find the King el Dorado, who loved to anoint his body with turpentine,
and then roll in gold dust. Neither he nor his city, called by the same
name, had been discovered. Attempts to penetrate into the interior had
all failed. The Indians were warlike and united; the country was a
jungle, environed with vast waters not easily navigated; and the
invaders had quarrelled among themselves. The latest effort had been
made in 1582 by Don Antonio de Berreo. Berreo was son-in-law to Quesada,
who had annexed New Grenada to Spain. Berreo alleged that he spent
300,000 ducats, and journeyed 1500 miles, before he arrived within
Guiana. He seems never to have actually entered. From a tribe on the
confines he received gifts of gold images and ornaments which he sent to
King Philip by his officer Domingo de Vera. But other Indians on the
borders blocked further progress by firing the savannahs. He was forced
to retire to Trinidad, of which he was appointed Governor. From Trinidad
he concerted raids on the mainland. One of his captains ascended the
Orinoko for some distance, and on April 23, 1593, took formal possession
of the country for Spain. Ralegh's own subsequent experience proved that
individual Spaniards had stolen in, searching for gold. He questioned
seamen who had been in or near this wonderful land. He studied every
published narrative which touched upon it. A treatise, never printed,
and now lost, which he had himself composed on the West Indies, may have
embodied the results of his enquiries. The information he collected
filled him at once with admiration for the invincible constancy, as he
described it, of the Spaniards, and with hatred of their rapacity and
cruelty. He abhorred their barbarous treatment of the native owners of
the New World. As always, he could not comprehend by what right they
claimed a monopoly of its sovereignty for themselves against the rest of
Europe.
Lady Ralegh perceived the bent of his thoughts. She wrote in February,
1594, to invoke the aid of Cecil, in diverting her husband from the
perilous temptation. I reproduce her letter in the original spelling: 'I
hope for my sake you will rather draw sur watar towardes the est then
heulp hyme forward touard the soonsett, if ani respecke to me or love to
him be not forgotten. But everi monthe hath his flower and everi season
his contentement, and you greate counselares ar so full of new councels
as you are steddi in nothing; but wee poore soules that hath bought
sorrow at a high price desiar, and can be plesed with, the same
misfortun wee hold, fering alltarracions will but multiply misseri, of
wich we have allredi felte sufficiant. I knoo unly your parswadcions ar
of efecke with him, and hild as orrekeles tied to them by Love; therfore
I humbelle besiech you rathar stay him then furdar him. By the wich you
shall bind me for ever. As yet you have ever geveng me caus.'
[Sidenote: _A Royal Commission._]
If Cecil tried dissuasion, he did not succeed. In the course of 1594
Ralegh sent out as a pioneer his 'most valiant and honest' old officer,
Captain Whiddon, to explore the Orinoko and gather information. Whiddon
sailed to Trinidad. There Berreo received him amicably, as it seemed,
though Whiddon thought the imprisonment of some of his crew implied
treachery. Berreo, with the assistance of de Vera in Spain, was
promoting an expedition of his own, and was not likely to be
communicative. Whiddon was back before 1595. Ralegh forthwith began
preparations for an expedition to be conducted by himself. He procured a
Royal Commission to 'our servant Sir Walter Ralegh,' neither 'trusty'
nor 'well-beloved,' to offend and enfeeble the King of Spain and his
subjects in his dominions to the uttermost; to discover and subdue
heathen lands not in the possession of any Christian prince, nor
inhabited by any Christian people; to resist and expel by force of arms
all persons who should attempt to settle within 200 leagues of the place
where he or his people might fix their habitations within the six
following years; and to capture all ships trading within the limits
aforesaid. He speedily equipped several ships. The cost was such that,
as he said at his trial, if he had died in Guiana, he had not left 300
marks a year to his wife and son. Captain Laurence Keymis was in command
of a galley. Captain Whiddon sailed again, to his grave as it happened
in Trinidad. Believers in Ralegh assisted. Thus, the High Admiral lent
the Lion's Whelp, which Anthony Wells King commanded. Two barks joined
the expedition, one under Captain Crosse, the other under Captain
Caulfield. There were 100 officers, gentlemen volunteers, and soldiers.
In the number was John Gilbert, Sir Humphrey's son. He was a close ally
of Ralegh's in maritime adventures, notwithstanding occasional
disagreement on their respective proportions of the profits. Cecil
contributed money. Two ships, under Captains Amias Preston and Sommers,
or Summers, which were expected to unite in the undertaking, never came.
The squadron when collected was detained by contrary winds. Ralegh
boasted to Cecil that he was indifferent to good fortune or adversity.
But in another letter he confessed: 'This wind breaks my heart.' The
delay was the more exasperating that other ships had run out, 'bound to
the wars, a multitude going for the Indies.' He was afraid the chiefest
places of his enterprise might be attempted, and he should be undone.
Others would reap no advantage; for he knew 'they would be beaten, and
do no good.'
[Sidenote: _The Voyage._]
[Sidenote: _Capture of Berreo._]
However, at last, on February 6, 1595, he was off. He had bequeathed to
Cecil the charge of staying litigation against him. He was especially
afraid of a suretyship suit instituted by Widow Smith. The widow 'hath a
son that waits on the keeper, and a daughter married to Mr. Wilkes, so
it will be harder to clear.' He captured a Spanish ship at the Canaries
with firearms, and a Fleming with wine. At Teneriffe he paused in vain
for Preston and Sommers. They had assumed that he would have quitted
Teneriffe before they could arrive. At least that was their explanation.
So they were gone on an adventure of their own. Finally Ralegh set sail.
He reached Trinidad on March 22. He stayed a month for the Lion's Whelp,
and also for Preston and Sommers. He employed his leisure in a careful
survey of the coast. On the shore he found clumps of mangroves bearing
oysters. He satisfied his mind that the Indian fig-tree is not the Tree
of Knowledge, its only fruit being oysters, which adhere to its
pendulous fibres. Terrible tales were told him of the Spanish habit of
chaining and torturing native chiefs. He heard also that five months
before Berreo had sent to Spain for reinforcements. It seemed dangerous
to leave an enemy behind him. He had, moreover, a grievance for the
maltreatment of Whiddon's men the year before. A combination of motives
induced him to lead a hundred of his company in a night attack on
Berreo's new city of St. Joseph. By dawn he took it. He burnt it down,
having first released from a dungeon five caciques fastened together
with a single chain. The proceeding was high-handed and summary. Now it
would be criminal. It did not bear that character then. Lingard has
stigmatised Ralegh as a murderer, on account of the Spanish lives lost
during the assault. Berreo and the Spanish Government were less
particular. They saw nothing in his conduct adverse to the laws of war
and nations. If their soldiers had arrived in time, they would have
anticipated him in the aggression. Throughout this whole period
Spaniards and Englishmen, on the ocean and in the Indies, fought or
fought not, as suited not merely their mutual, but their several,
convenience. Neither side held it treachery to be assailed without a
solemn declaration of war. Berreo, as there is no real reason to doubt,
though Southey has questioned it, was captured in the town. Ralegh
speaks of him as a well descended gentleman, of great assuredness, and
of a great heart. He had his defects. He tortured natives, and was so
ignorant as not to know east from west. These blemishes of feeling and
education did not prevent Ralegh from behaving as a polished English
gentleman to a polished Spanish hidalgo. They lived together in great
amity, and conversed much. Berreo was so far from showing rancour that
he told all he knew of previous attempts upon Guiana. He did not
under-rate the difficulties, partly because he had reason to believe in
them, partly from a wish to put his captor off a project he hoped
hereafter to accomplish himself. Among other impediments to an entrance
he mentioned that the main land was 600 miles farther from the sea than
Whiddon had understood it to be. Ralegh concealed the disquieting fact
from his men.
[Sidenote: _A Maze of Waters._]
He assembled a conclave of island chiefs. His Sovereign, a virgin Queen,
he informed them, had commissioned him to free them from the Castilian
yoke. Then he set forth from Curiapan in an old gallego boat cut down
to draw but five feet of water. It was fitted with banks of oars. Sixty
officers and gentlemen volunteers embarked with him. A boat, two
wherries, and a barge carried forty more. They were victualled for a
month. The ships anchored near los Gallos in the Gulf of Paria. Twenty
miles of sea were crossed 'in a great billow' to Guanipa Bay, where
dwelt savages who shot poisoned arrows. Then the expedition was
entangled in a labyrinth of rivers. These were the eight branches of the
Orinoko. 'All the earth,' wrote Ralegh, 'doth not yield the like
confluence of streams.' That is hardly an exaggerated statement about
the Orinoko, which is fed by more than 436 rivers, and a couple of
thousand rivulets. A young Indian pilot, whom Ralegh had brought, named
Ferdinando, became bewildered. The boats might have wandered a whole
year had not, partly by force, and partly by good treatment, the
services of an old native been secured. Though often sorely perplexed,
he piloted them along a succession of narrow reaches of the Cano Manamo.
By Ralegh's orders he and the other Indian promised an outlet by every
next day, to cheer the crews. All were, however, on the verge of utter
despair, when suddenly the tangled thickets on the banks opened up into
a lovely champaign country. It was a paradise of birds and beasts. The
turf was diversified by groves of trees, disposed in order as if by all
the art and labour in the world. Still as the oarsmen rowed the deer
came down feeding by the water's side, as if they had been used to a
keeper's call. On an excursion off the route they were following they
overtook two canoes laden with bread. Among the bushes they found a
refiner's basket. In it were quicksilver and saltpetre, prepared for
assay, and the dust of ore which had been refined. It belonged to some
Spaniards who escaped; but the natives, their companions, were caught.
One of them, called Martino, proved a better pilot than Ferdinando and
the old man. Naturally the refining apparatus suggested a hunt after
gold. Ralegh was of a different opinion. The attempt, he considered,
would give notice to other nations of the riches of the country. To the
present expedition it could not have been very profitable from lack of
tools. He had no mind to dig with his nails. Had he wanted gold he
might, he says, have obtained much in actual bullion from the Indians.
But he 'shot at another mark than present profit.' He decided to
advance, his men being of good courage, and crying out to go on, they
cared not how far.
[Sidenote: _Friendly Chiefs._]
On the fifteenth day they discovered afar the Guiana mountains. Towards
evening they entered the main channel of the Orinoko. No Englishman had
preceded them. Consequently Captain Keymis afterwards re-named the
river, after his commander, Raleana. Now they were in a more populous
region. But the natives did not obstruct their advance. Ralegh had the
art of impressing them with faith and admiration. Hard as it was, he
hindered his men from robbing the villagers, insulting their women, or,
like the Spaniards in Peru, ransacking their hallowed graves for
treasure. A border prince, Toparimaca, regaled Ralegh's captains with
pine-apple wine till some of them were 'reasonable pleasant.' He also
lent his elderly brother for pilot. Under his guidance a branch of the
river, edged with rocks of a blue colour, like steel ore, was explored.
On the right bank were seen the plains of the Sayma, reaching to Cumana
and Caraccas, 120 leagues to the north. There dwelt the black
smooth-haired Aroras, accustomed to use poisoned arrows. No Spaniard
knew how to cure hurts from urari, which seems to be strychnine. 'Yet
they taught me,' writes Ralegh, 'the best way of healing as well this as
all other poisons.' Humboldt speaks of the Guaikas, who still use
poisoned darts, and by the terror of them have repelled intruders.
[Sidenote: _Indigenous Marvels._]
On they voyaged as far as Aromaia and its port, Morequito, 300 miles
from the sea. Here Ralegh was visited by wise Topiowari, King of
Aromaia, 110 years old. His nephew and predecessor, Morequito, had been
murdered by the Spaniards. He himself had been dragged for seventeen
days in a chain, like a dog, till he ransomed himself with a hundred
plates of gold and several chains of spleen stones. The old chief, who
walked to and fro, twenty-eight miles, brought a present of flesh, fish,
fowl, Guiana pine-apples, the prince of fruits, declares Ralegh, bread,
wine, parakeets, and an armadillo, which Ralegh afterwards ate. Ralegh
told him he had been sent by his Queen to deliver the Indians from
Spanish tyranny. Thence he would have ascended the Caroni, but his men
could not row a stone's throw in an hour. So he pushed on by land to
view the falls, ten or a dozen in number, each as high above the other
as a church tower. Deer flitted across every path. Birds at evening sang
a thousand different tunes. Cranes and herons, white, crimson,
carnation, perched on the banks. Fresh easterly breezes blew. Every
stone they stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by its
complexion. A Captain George, who had been captured with Berreo, had
told them a rich silver mine was near the Caroni. Topiowari's only son,
Caworako, informed him of the Carolians. He said they were foes to the
Spaniards. They had a feud also with the Epirumei, subjects of the Inca
of Manoa, who abounded in gold. The Carolians and three tribes at the
head of the Caroni, he asserted, would help Ralegh against both Spain
and the Inca. He spoke too of the Ewaipanomas, with eyes in their
shoulders and mouths in their breasts, living on the Caora. He was sure
of the eyes and mouths, for they had lately fought and slain many
hundreds of his father's people. Ralegh vouches neither for the Amazons
in the province of Topago, nor for these Ewaipanomas, 'For my part I saw
them not, but am resolved that so many people did not all combine, or
forethink to make the report.' Nineteen years later he took occasion in
his History to justify by the Greek belief in Amazons 'mine own relation
of them, which was held for vain and improbable.'
[Sidenote: _Sparrow and Goodwin._]
By this time the summer was over. Winter in the Tropics is the rainy
season. It shows itself less by any sensible change of vegetation than
by floods, gusts, thunder and lightning. The streams rose and raged; the
men were wetted to the skins ten times a day, and had no dry clothes to
put on. The fleet was some hundred miles away. Ralegh set his face
homewards. The boats glided down the Orinoko at a rate, though against
the wind, of little less than 100 miles a day. On his arrival at
Morequito Topiowari came on a parting visit. He brought a plentiful
supply of provisions, which Ralegh bought at fair prices. Every day,
said the old man, had death called for him; but he was animated by a
sagacious anxiety for his country, which the Spaniards threatened.
Ralegh's noble courtesy was as unstinted to the patriarchal savage as to
the Queen of England. He had infused the like temper into his officers,
and Topiowari's confidence was won. Already they had talked freely on
the politics and nature of Guiana, and how to obtain access to its
heart. Now the chief definitely offered to join in a march upon golden
Manoa if Ralegh would leave fifty Englishmen to defend him from the
vengeance of the Inca and Spain. Ralegh was timid for his men. He
compromised by engaging to return next year. Topiowari sent with him his
son, who was christened in England Gualtero. Ralegh left in Aromaia
Francis Sparrow, or Sparrie, to sketch and describe the country and
travel to Manoa with merchandise. Sparrow trafficked in Indian slaves.
At last the Spaniards captured him and forwarded him to Spain, from
which he made his way home in 1602. A boy, Hugh Goodwin, remained by his
own wish to learn the language. Ralegh found him at Caliana in 1617. He
had almost forgotten his native tongue. When these arrangements were
being made Ralegh steadfastly purposed to come back shortly. For the
moment his plan rather was to lay the foundation of friendships, and to
acquire information, than to conquer territory or open mines. For
example, he gave away, he states, more money's worth in gold guineas
than he received in gold plates. He had seen enough to be persuaded the
region was a land of gold. He was shown specimens of gold wrought by the
Epirumei, and the process had been explained to him. In Aromaia itself
he observed all the hills spread with stones of the colour of gold and
silver. At first he had conjectured they were marquesite. He tested
them and ascertained they were _el madre del oro_. Where that is, the
presence of gold below was supposed to be indicated. He remarked also
the outside of many mines of white spar, from which he drew as
flattering a conclusion.
[Sidenote: _Keymis's Gold Mine._]
From Aromaia a cacique Putijma accompanied him towards Mount Iconuri,
which contained a gold mine. 'Being a very ill footman,' he soon gave
in. He sent Keymis on, arranging that they should meet at the Cumaca.
Putijma conducted Keymis to the mine. On his own route Ralegh passed
many rocks like gold ore, a round mountain of mineral stone, and a
mountain of crystal. The crystal mountain he did not find crowned with
the diamond, which, according to Berreo, blazed afar. Its true diadem
was a mighty river, rushing down with a noise as of a thousand enormous
jangling bells. Near Mount Roraima the natives were solemnizing a
festival, 'all as drunk as beggars.' They pressed upon the strangers
abundance of delicate pine-apple wine. On the Cumaca Keymis rejoined
Ralegh. They bade adieu to sorrowing Putijma. They were themselves
downcast. 'Their hearts were cold to behold the great rage and increase
of Orinoko,' 'the sea without a shore,' as Humboldt has termed its
mouth. The Cano Manamo too, by which they had entered Guiana, was now
violently in flood. They had to follow the Capuri branch. At its mouth a
fierce gale was blowing, and the galley was near sinking. Ralegh,
embarking in his barge with Gifford, Caulfield, and his cousin,
Grenville, thrust into the sea at midnight. The galley he left to come
by day. 'Thus, faintly cheering one another in show of courage, it
pleased God about nine o'clock the next morning we descried the Isle of
Trinidad.' The ships were riding at anchor at Curiapan on the south-west
of the island. 'Never was there to us a more joyful sight.' Only one man
had perished, a very proper young negro, who, leaping into the river of
Lagartos to swim, was instantly devoured before them all by a crocodile.
The rest, in spite of wet, heat, want of sleep, clean clothes, and
shelter, and a diet of rotting fruit, crocodile, sea-cow, tapir, and
armadillo, all survived. They had suffered from no pestilence.
Schomburgk thinks Ralegh coloured too highly the mineral riches of
Guiana. He attests the veracity of the praises both of its prodigious
vegetable and animal fruitfulness, and of its healthiness away from the
malaria of the coast. His opinion was formed on an experience of eight
years of exploration.
[Sidenote: _Voyage Homewards._]
Ralegh had intended to sail to Virginia, and endeavour to relieve his
settlers. Extremity of weather forced him to abandon the design. He
demanded supplies at Cumana, where he left Berreo, at St. Mary's, and at
Rio de la Hacha. Being refused them, he sacked and burnt all three.
Incidentally he mentions that he found 'not a real of plate.' But he had
punished the settlements for their churlishness, not for the sake of
booty. He did not care to look out for spoil. 'It would have sorted
ill,' he wrote, 'with the offices of honour which by her Majesty's grace
I hold this day in England, to run from cape to cape for the pillage of
ordinary prizes.' On July 13, off Cuba, Preston and Sommers met, as
states their chronicler, the Honourable Knight Sir Walter Ralegh
returning from his painful and happy discovery of Guiana, and his
surprise of the Isle of Trinidad. Their two ships and his three remained
in company for twenty days. In August, 1595, he is understood to have
been back in England, 'a beggar,' as he expressed it, 'and withered.'
His wife had been watching over his interests. Her letter to Cecil of
March 20, 1595, is pleasantly characteristic. She explained in it her
urgency in a suit against Lord Huntingdon: 'I rather choose this time to
follow it in Sir Walter's absence, that myself may bear the unkindness,
and not he.' The subject of the proceedings was a refusal by the Earl to
surrender for Ralegh's use Lady Ralegh's portion, which was in his
hands, and had become payable through her mother's death.
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Book on Guiana._]
[Sidenote: _Vindication of his Veracity._]
The return did not excite much popular sensation. Cecil seems to have
doubted the genuineness or value of the minerals. He cannot have
profited by his investment in the adventure, and was not disposed to be
fervent in its praise. Hakluyt remarks how careful the cold Secretary of
State was not to be overtaken with any partial affection for the
planting of Guiana. Even in Devonshire there seem to have circulated
'slanderous and scoffing speeches touching Sir Walter's late occasion at
sea.' His enemies before he went predicted he would never return, but
would become 'a servant to the Spanish King.' Now that he was back, they
depreciated the importance of the enterprise, and especially his part in
it. Very absurdly they contended that he was too easeful and sensual to
have undertaken a journey of so great travail, and had been hiding in
Cornwall. Some gold he had helped to dig out with his own dagger. A
London alderman persuaded an officer of the Mint to report this
worthless; but Westwood, a refiner of Wood Street, and Dulmar Dimoke,
and Palmer, Controllers of the Mint, pronounced it very rich.
Calumniators, taking up a different position, alleged that the whole had
been imported from Barbary into Guiana. Ralegh himself wrote to Cecil on
November 21, 1595: 'What becomes of Guiana I much desire to hear,
whether it pass for a history or a fable.' He had to take pen in hand,
and defend himself from slanders by his _Discovery of the large, rich,
and beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden
city of Manoa_. The volume was published in 1596, with a grateful
dedication to his friends in adversity, his kinsman, the Lord Admiral,
and Cecil. Hume characterizes the account as 'full of the grossest and
most palpable lies.' The sole apparent ground for the accusation is that
Ralegh quoted Indian tales of strange creatures, giving the Indian
narrators as his authorities. It is not necessary to deny that he may
have been prone to believe in them too. The legend of a nation of
Amazons is of venerable antiquity. His was an age of faith in portents,
in witches, and wizards. If he did not sternly refuse credence even to
the shoulder-eyed Ewaipanomas, it must be remembered that a world of
'stranger things than are to be seen between London and Staines,' as he
has said, was being opened up to wondering Europe. Ralegh's personal
evidence, as I have mentioned, Schomburgk has tested; and he certifies
that it is not open to Hume's condemnation. Humboldt concurs. In
particular, the geographical knowledge exhibited in Ralegh's narrative
has been proved to be, for the period, curiously wide and accurate. His
observations on the natural phenomena of the region are equally faithful
and sagacious. The trust he reposed in its metallic riches is being now
demonstrated to have been more solidly founded than even Sir Robert
Schomburgk thought it. International disputes have recently arisen out
of the discovery of gold in the country still known as Guiana. Of the
gold field in Venezuela, which was comprised in Ralegh's Guiana, a
Government Inspector of Mines stated in 1889 that he believed we had in
it Sir Walter's el Dorado itself.
Contemporaries were captivated by the charm of the narrative. It
suffered from no dearth of readers at home. Abroad it was admired almost
more warmly. Four German editions appeared between 1599 and 1602, the
first three being published at Nuremberg. It was translated into Dutch
in 1598, and again in 1605, 1617, 1707, 1727, and 1747. Latin versions
were issued at Nuremberg and Frankfort in 1599. Ralegh's comrade,
Keymis, glorified the author and discoverer in Latin verse. George
Chapman sang the exploit in English. The Queen continued obdurate.
Ralegh's friends in vain interceded for his recall to Court. In vain he
waited for a summons, 'living about London,' as was said in December,
1595, perhaps at Mitcham or Mile End, 'very gallant.' He would not have
minded his toil had it brought his pardon. If he could thereby have
appeased the Queen's 'so powerful displeasure,' he would for a year more
have 'held fast his soul in his teeth.' But he imagined himself not at
all advanced towards forgiveness by his feat. Elizabeth, he complained,
persisted in 'the ungrateful custom of making one failing eclipse the
merit of many virtuous actions.' Personal resentment, he supposed,
closed her ears to his eloquent entreaties that she should keep a small
army afoot in Guiana marching towards Manoa. In that event, he was
certain, the Inca would yield to her Majesty so many hundred thousand
pounds yearly as should both defend her from all enemies abroad and
defray all expenses at home. She would have the means of foiling the
wiles by which, through his American gold, Philip 'crept into councils,
and set loyalty at liberty in the greatest monarchies.'
[Sidenote: _The Gold of Guiana._]
Guiana contained, he asserted, all things precious. Its lord would
possess as many diamonds as the princes of India, and more gold, a more
beautiful empire, more cities and people than either the King of Spain
or the Great Turk. He understood the temper of his age. He was aware
that 'where there is store of gold, it is in effect needless to remember
other commodities for trade.' Therefore he dilated on the gold and
diamonds of Guiana rather beyond measure, though not without reason. But
he had a quick eye for its other and more permanent advantages.
Throughout his career, to its end, and in all his writings, he differed
from other Elizabethan statesmen and explorers in regarding war with
Spain not merely in its retaliatory, defensive, and plundering aspects,
but as a means of enlarging the national boundaries. He desired to endow
England with a colonial empire. He pointed out that the new country had
everything which could render it habitable for Europeans. It was only a
six weeks' voyage from England. It was free from white occupants, and
had escaped spoliation. It was a region in which, he was convinced,
Englishmen could thrive and be happy. With his military instinct he had
truly discerned how easily it might be guarded by a couple of forts on
sites commanding the entrance into the Orinoko.
[Sidenote: _Spanish Plantation of San Thome._]
[Sidenote: _Another of Keymis's Gold Mines._]
He trusted she who was the lady of ladies would be inspired to accept
the direct dominion. If not, he was ready to judge those men worthy to
be its kings who by her grace and leave should undertake the task of
themselves. Unlicensed Undertakers were not wanting, much to his
disgust. He wrote to Cecil in November, 1595, that he heard Mr. Dudley
and others were sending ships. He besought that none be suffered to soil
the enterprise, and that he should be thought worthy to govern the
country he had discovered. The whole duty of sovereignty properly, he
held, appertained to the State. If it could not afford the requisite
funds, he expounded in an unpublished essay how a few hundred English
artificers might teach the Indians to arm themselves against the
Spaniards. By an able and generous argument he reconciled the
indefeasible right of the natives to their territory with the industrial
colony he was planning. As the State could in no shape be induced to
interest itself, he maintained the English connexion with Guiana at his
private charge. In the January of 1596 he despatched Keymis with the
Darling and Discovery. They were laden with merchandise to comfort and
assure the people that they should not yield to any composition with
other nations. Burleigh and Robert Cecil were joint adventurers with
Ralegh. Burleigh advanced L500, and his son lent a new ship bravely
furnished. Keymis learnt they had been forestalled. King Philip,
perturbed by the tidings of Ralegh's enterprise, had granted Berreo's
application by de Vera for troops. On May 16, 1595, before Ralegh's own
return, Sir John Gilbert heard from a Frenchman that the King had sent
forces to el Dorado. A powerful force for the conquest of Manoa arrived
in Trinidad in 1596. Finally, it is true, the majority miserably
perished, and the expedition effected nothing. But a village had already
been planted near the port of Topiowari, who, Keymis heard, was dead.
This settlement, known as San Thome, Santo Thome, San Tome, Santo Tomas,
or St. Thomas, did not owe its actual beginning to Berreo. It was first
founded by Jesuits in 1576, close to the confluence of the Caroni and
Orinoko. At the period of Ralegh's voyage it had become deserted. Berreo
reoccupied the site; and Keymis found the mouth of the Caroni blocked,
and guarded by a battery. 'Thus,' wrote Lady Ralegh indignantly to
Cecil, on Keymis's return, Ralegh being away in Spain, 'you hear your
poor absent friend's fortune, who, if he had been as well credited in
his reports and knowledges as it seemeth the Spaniards were, they had
not now been possessors of that place.' Keymis had to alter his route.
His passage to the mine from which the ores and white stones had been
taken the year before was intercepted. He went in the direction of Mount
Aio. Putijma had pointed out a gold mine in that neighbourhood to a
pilot. Even this mine, however, he did not actually reach, though he was
within fifteen miles of it. He was afraid, he said, that he and his men
might be cut off in the attempt, and the secret of the treasure be
buried with them. He was content to foster the amity of the Indians, to
remark additional signs of gold and spleen stones, and to discover above
fifty fresh rivers and tribes. After an absence of five months, he
arrived off Portland at the end of June. In a published narrative of his
expedition he apologised for having emptied Ralegh's purse in the
prosecution of patriotic designs thwarted by 'envy and private
respects.'