THE EXPEDITION (May, 1617-June, 1618).
[Sidenote: _Orders to the Fleet._]
On May 3 he published his orders to the fleet. They were a model of
godly, severe, and martial government, as testified a gentleman of his
company. Divine service was to be solemnised every morning and evening.
The pillage of ships of friendly Powers was rigorously prohibited.
Courtesy towards the Indians was strictly injoined. All firearms were to
be kept clean. Rules were laid down in the event of an encounter with
'the enemy' at sea. Cards, dice, and swearing were forbidden. The people
of the West, and especially Plymouth, had remained faithful in their
admiration of Ralegh though an imprisoned convict. They rejoiced at
seeing him once more in command of a powerful fleet. On the eve of his
departure the Mayor of Plymouth, a Trelawny, 'by a general consent,' at
the town's expense entertained the Admiral and his followers. The town
also 'paid the drummer for calling Sir Walter Ralegh's company aboard.'
On June 12, seven ships of war and three pinnaces sailed from the port.
At sea they were joined by loiterers, which brought the total up to
thirteen ships, manned by a thousand men. Contrary winds forced them
back, first into Plymouth, and next into Falmouth. Again, eight leagues
west of Scilly, a gale rose which sank a pinnace, and drove the rest
into Kinsale.
[Sidenote: _Boyle's Bargain with Ralegh._]
At Cork he was cordially welcomed alike by old enemies and old friends.
With his inexhaustible vivacity he flew his hawks at Cloyne; he took
shares in an Irish copper mining adventure; he provisioned his fleet; he
was feasted and admired; he reviewed the past, and anticipated the
future. Among those who sought his company were Lords Barry and Roche.
Boyle, now Lord Boyle, came from Lismore, and entertained him. He rode
to Lismore and Mogelly. His estate had turned in Boyle's more patient
hands into a noble domain with a revenue estimated by Pym in 1616 at
L12,000. Boyle gave his own account of his transactions with Ralegh in a
letter of 1631 to Carew Ralegh, who wished to have them reviewed.
According to this he behaved, and was recognised by Ralegh as having
behaved, generously and honourably. Clearly he had no doubt of his own
magnanimity. At the time of the attainder the conveyance under the
agreement of 1602 was not legally completed. Apparently not all the
purchase-money had been paid. Inquisitions were being taken of Ralegh's
Irish lands by the Government. Sir John Ramsay, Boyle said, had offered
to use his Scotch influence to obtain from the Crown an absolute release
of all claims against him, by Ralegh as well as by the Crown, for 500
marks. He preferred to follow the advice of George Carew, who predicted
to him after the Winchester conviction that the King would remit
Ralegh's forfeiture. He went on dealing with him, though legally
incompetent, and had paid him a supplementary sum of L1000 to close the
matter. In addition he had to beg or buy a royal confirmation of his
title to the lands, when they had been 'found by offices' upon the
attainder. Now, in Cork he supplied the expedition with oxen, biscuit,
beer, and iron, to the value of 600 marks or more. He gave Ralegh L350
in cash, and a thirty-two gallon cask of whiskey. For three weeks he
kept open house for him at Cork. Ralegh, he asserted, reciprocated his
hospitalities by a full abandonment of any possible claims he might have
made upon the Lismore property. He also contributed evidence towards
Boyle's defence against some demands founded by Ralegh's old partner
Pyne upon a lease alleged by him to have been granted him by Ralegh
many years before, in extension of a shorter term. Ralegh, though on
good terms at the time with Pyne, seems to have assured Boyle of his
belief that the second demise was a counterfeit fabricated by Meere. His
dealings, however, were very complicated, and his remembrance of them
necessarily not always clear. In 1618 he became dubious if he had not
been too positive against Pyne's title. He requested, on the eve of his
death, that he should not be considered a witness either for or against
it.
[Sidenote: _Fray at Lancerota._]
The fleet stayed at Cork from June 25 to August 19. Then it made a fresh
start. Off Cape St. Vincent, Captain Bayley, of the ship Southampton,
boarded four French vessels, and took from them a fishing net, a
pinnace, and some oil. A report of the capture reached Madrid, where it
was denounced as piracy. In truth Ralegh had been scrupulous. He
insisted on buying the goods of the owners at the price of sixty-one
crowns, to the high indignation of Bayley. The captor's argument was
that he found the Frenchmen had procured their cargo by piracy in the
West Indies, and he, therefore, had lawfully confiscated it. Ralegh did
not admit that the charge would, if true, justify him in refusing
compensation. Frenchmen and Englishmen alike, he held, could plunder
Spaniards 'beyond the line.' Lancerota, one of the Great Canaries, was
reached on September 6. The islanders happened to be under the influence
of a special panic. Barbary corsairs had been ravaging a neighbouring
island. Next year they laid Lancerota itself waste. When Ralegh's fleet
appeared it was supposed to be the Barbary squadron. Some sailors having
landed, three were murdered. Ralegh showed remarkable forbearance. He
would suffer no vengeance to be taken. An English merchantman, belonging
to one Reeks of Ratcliff, lay in the harbour. Ralegh knew it would have
to bear the penalty of retaliation by him. Bayley, however, seized upon
the pretext of the broil. He affected to see in that, onesided as it
was, evidence of Ralegh's piratical temper. In a fit of virtuous horror
at his Admiral who had docked his prize money of sixty-one crowns, he
deserted, and sailed home.
[Sidenote: _Sickness in the Fleet._]
At Gomera, one of the Lesser Canaries, the fleet found more hospitality.
The Governor permitted the crews to draw water, and buy provisions.
Ralegh reciprocated by keeping his men in perfect order. He sent a
present of gloves to the Governor's wife, a lady of the Stafford family.
She returned fruit, sugar, and rusks. Not to be outdone he rejoined with
ambergris, rosewater, a cut-work ruff, and a picture of the Magdalen. He
was in the habit of taking pictures with him on his voyages. This
interchange of courtesies was the one gleam of human kindness which
lighted up for Ralegh his dismal journey. He dwells upon it gratefully
in the journal he kept. The manuscript, in twenty large pages, is in the
British Museum. It covers the period from August 19 to February 13. Off
the Isle of Bravo, sickness attacked the fleet. It was aggravated
through the protraction of the voyage by contrary winds from the
customary fortnight or three weeks to six. Forty-two men in the flagship
died. Among them were Fowler, the principal refiner, Ralegh's cook
Francis, his servant Crab, the master surgeon, the provost martial,
Captain Piggot, his best land-general, and Mr. John Talbot, 'who,'
records Ralegh, 'had lived with me eleven years in the Tower, an
excellent general scholar, and a faithful true man as lived.' The ship
left Bravo on October 4. On the 12th they were becalmed. At one time a
thick and fearful darkness enveloped them. Then the horizon became
over-shot with gloomy discolorations. Off Trinidad fifteen rainbows in a
day were seen. Ralegh caught a cold, which turned to a burning fever.
For twenty-eight days he lay unable to take solid food. He could not
have survived but for the Gomera fruit. His ordinary servants were all
ill; but he had also pages who attended him. Apparently his illness did
not prevent him from keeping a general supervision of the fleet. His
journal proves him to have been a thorough and practical seaman.
[Sidenote: _Indian Affection._]
The fleet arrived off Cape Oyapoco on November 11. Ralegh wrote to his wife
on November 17, from the mouth of the Cayenne in Guiana, the Caliana, as he
calls it: 'Sweet Heart, 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 Spaniards to fortify
all the entrances against us. If we perish, it shall be no gain for his
Majesty to lose, among many other, one hundred as valiant gentlemen as
England hath in it.' But he was not disheartened. Walter was never so well,
having had 'no distemper in all the heat under the Line.' He found good
faith in Indian hearts, if not at King James's Court. 'To tell you I might
here be King of the Indians were a vanity; but my name hath still lived
among them. All offer to obey me.' Harry the Indian Chief who had lived two
years in the Tower with him presently came. He had previously sent
provisions. He brought roasted mullets, which were very good meat, great
store of plantains, peccaries, casava bread, pistachio nuts, and pine
apples, which tempted Ralegh exceedingly. After a few days on shore he
began to mend, and to have an appetite for roast peccary. His crews were
still sickly, and rested for three weeks. One of the Adventurers employed
his leisure in composing a discourse in praise of Guiana. It contains the
orders Ralegh issued to the fleet before he left England; but the
information concerning the voyage is meagre. Captain Peter Alley, being ill
of a vertigo, was sent home in a Dutch vessel, which traded with Guiana.
The narrative went with him. Next year it was printed in London under the
title 'Newes of Sir Walter Rauleigh from the River of Caliana,' with a
woodcut of Ralegh in band and collar, and a laced velvet doublet.
[Sidenote: _The new San Thome._]
Ralegh left the Cayenne on December 4, and sailed to the Triangle
Islands, now called the Isles of Health. There he organized the
expedition to the Mine. It was decided that he should not lead in
person. Fever had a second time attacked him. Besides, his officers
were unwilling to venture inland, unless he remained behind to guard the
river mouth from a Spanish fleet. Sir Wareham St. Leger, the
lieutenant-general, also was ill. George Ralegh, who previously had
succeeded Piggot as serjeant-major, commanded in St. Leger's place.
Apparently Ralegh, who nowhere has specified the exact situation,
supposed the Mine was at a short distance from the right bank of the
river. Mr. Gardiner, in his _Case against Sir Walter Ralegh_, published
in the _Fortnightly Review_ in 1867, assumes it was that pointed out to
Keymis by Putijma in 1595, though, it must be remembered, Keymis heard
of another from the Cacique in 1596. At any rate the precise
topographical relation between it and the existing Spanish settlement of
San Thome, or St. Thomas, was unknown to Ralegh. The town was no longer
where it had stood in 1596 when Keymis heard of it. The old site had
been deserted at some date which cannot be fixed. The common view has
been that the change had been effected before 1611, and that the San
Thome which Captain Moate found inhabited by the Spaniards was the new
town. That is unlikely, both because Moate would then have identified
the actual spot, and on account of Ralegh's description to the King,
after his return, of the town as 'new set up within three miles of the
Mine.' San Thome at all events in 1618 was twenty to thirty miles lower
down than the original town. It was close to the bank, a group of some
hundred and forty houses, 'a town of stakes, covered with leaves of
trees.' There is no evidence that Ralegh, who must have heard of the
transplantation, knew the new town directly blocked the approach to the
Mine. Though, however, he was ignorant that in the circumstances a
collision was certain, he may well have thought it probable. So must the
English Government which had sanctioned his martial preparations. The
Spaniards never dissembled their belief that the entrance of foreigners
into the American interior was a lawless trespass to be repelled by
force. Consequently, he provided against the contingency. Four hundred
soldiers and sailors were embarked in five of the ships of least
draught, commanded by Captains Whitney, King, Smith, Wollaston, and
Hall. The other five, including the flagship, which drew twelve feet of
water, were left behind with Ralegh. The land forces were under Walter.
The landing and search for the Mine were entrusted to Keymis.
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Instructions to his Captains._]
Ralegh's account of his communications to his officers differs from that
put forth by the King's Government. According to the official version,
he at first advised them to commence by the immediate capture of the
Spanish town. But, objected one of them, that would be a breach of
peace. He is alleged to have answered that he had orders by word of
mouth to take the town, if it were any hindrance to the digging of the
Mine. The tale rests on the dubious testimony of James's Councillors
writing in a desperate panic at an outburst of popular indignation after
Ralegh's execution. In itself it is not improbable that Ralegh, with
qualifications omitted in the official report, said something at a
council of war to this effect. If he suggested a hostile movement at
all, he may be presumed to have stated also with right that he spoke by
authority. Mr. Secretary Winwood, it is admitted, calculated upon a
collision with the Spaniards, and even upon Ralegh's seizure of the
plate-fleet. He would not shrink from the capture of a Guiana fort. They
alone will treat Ralegh's assertion, if it were his, as 'evidence of his
unblushing effrontery,' to whom his accounts are necessarily mendacious,
and those of the Court, King James's Court, necessarily honest. In any
case the point matters little, as Ralegh is admitted to have himself
decided against the plan. His final instructions to Keymis and George
Ralegh were that they should endeavour to reach the Mine, as he imagined
they might, without a struggle. He bade them encamp between it and the
town, which, as he believed, lay beyond. Thus the soldiers would cover
the miners as they worked. 'If,' said he, 'you find the Mine royal, and
the Spaniards begin to war upon you, you, George Ralegh, are to repel
them, and to drive them as far as you can.' To Keymis he said, 'If you
find the Mine be not so rich as may persuade the holding of it, and
draw on a second supply, then you shall bring but a basket or two, to
satisfy his Majesty that my design was not imaginary, but true, though
not answerable to his Majesty's expectation.' If there appeared to be
many new soldiers, 'so that, without manifest peril of my son and the
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
Spaniards to the dishonour of our nation. I myself for my weakness
cannot be present. Neither will the companies land, except I stay with
the ships, the galleons of Spain being daily expected. My nephew is but
a young man. It is therefore on your judgment that I rely. You shall
find me at Puncto Gallo, dead or alive. And if you find not my ships
there, you shall find their ashes. For I will fire, with the galleons,
if it come to extremity; run will I never.'
[Sidenote: _Departure for the Mine._]
The expedition started with a month's provisions on December 10. Its
progress was slow, and accidents detained Whitney's and Wollaston's
vessels. The rest took three weeks to reach the Isle of Yaya, styled by
Ralegh Assapana. The isle is opposite to the modern town of St. Raphael
of Barrancas. Preparations had been made by the Spaniards to resist
further progress. Antonio de Berreo was dead. His son Fernando was
Governor-General of New Grenada, with authority over Guiana and
Trinidad. But recently Diego Palomeque de Acuna had been appointed to
administer those two territories. He was a relative of Gondomar. A copy
of the description of the fleet and its intended course, which Ralegh
had been obliged to submit to James, had been sent to him from Madrid on
March 19, 1617. He had repaired to San Thome. The English were attacked
by fire from both banks. Nevertheless, on the evening of December 31,
according to Ralegh, they sailed past the town without noticing it. On
New Year's Day, 1618, they landed, at eleven in the morning, some little
distance higher up. They were ignorant, Ralegh stated subsequently in
his _Apology_, of the proximity of the settlement. Their intention
simply was to rest by the river, and the next day to set off for the
Mine. Pedro Simon, a Spanish historian of the period, differs. He
asserts that they landed below the town, and deliberately marched
against it. At all events, it cannot be questioned that the Spaniards
were fully resolved to stop the advance of the expedition, whether to
the Mine or elsewhere. If, as James's commission to Ralegh assumed,
Englishmen had a right to make their way to the Mine, they could not be
more to blame than the Spaniards for the actual collision. In fact the
Spaniards struck the first blow.
[Sidenote: _Death of Walter._]
They had arranged an ambuscade, and, under Geronimo de Grados, attacked
about nine in the evening. Though the Spanish force appears to have
comprised but forty-two regular soldiers, the English were thrown into
confusion. 'The common sort,' wrote Ralegh, 'as weak sort as ever
followed valiant leaders, were so amazed as, had not the captains and
some other twenty or thirty valiant gentlemen made a head and encouraged
the rest, they had all been broken and cut to pieces.' Ultimately the
English drove the assailants back to the town. In front of it Diego
Palomeque and the main body of Spaniards were drawn up. The reports of
eye-witnesses on the sequel differed. According to one, the pikemen whom
Walter led were in advance of the musketeers. According to another, they
were behind, when Walter quitted them and rushed in front. In the
official _Declaration_ it was alleged that Walter, 'who was likest to
know his father's secret,' cried to the Englishmen, 'Come on, my hearts;
here is the Mine that ye must expect; they that look for any other are
fools.' By all accounts he closed with the enemy, and Grados or Erenetta
mortally wounded him. His last words were: 'Go on! Lord, have mercy upon
me, and prosper your enterprise.' His death excited his men. Diego was
slain, and his force routed. The English stormed the monastery of St.
Francis, in which some of the fugitives had fortified themselves. San
Thome, such as it was, was theirs. They buried Walter, and Captain
Cosmor, described in a letter of March 22 to Alley by Parker as leader
of the forlorn hope, in one grave, near the high altar in the Church of
St. Thomas. On the day of the funeral the belated ships of Whitney and
Wollaston arrived.
[Sidenote: _Failure to reach the Mine._]
Notwithstanding the loss of the town, the Spaniards maintained
resistance. Garcia de Aguilar and Juan de Lazanna, the alcaldes, with
Grados, collected the residue, and constituted a garrison for the women
and children in the Isle of la Ceyva. They laid wait for stray
Englishmen, and cooped the main body within the town. There discords
broke out which George Ralegh had difficulty in pacifying. Not till a
week after the occupation did Keymis venture to make for the Mine,
though he computed that it was but eight miles off. At length he
equipped a couple of launches. In them he, Sir John Hampden, and others
embarked. Near la Ceyva they fell into an ambuscade. Nine out of those
in the first launch were killed or wounded. Keymis was discouraged, and
turned back, he alleged, for more soldiers. Though not a man afraid of
responsibility, he may have shrunk from the prospect, as he intimated,
that he might, through Ralegh's sickness, as well as legal disabilities,
have to bear it alone. Ralegh's detractors inferred from the inactivity
of Keymis that he and Ralegh were as incredulous of the existence of the
Mine as, by his own subsequent account, had always been the King. The
imputation upon the truthfulness of Keymis is altogether groundless. He
had, in his expedition of 1596, ascertained the authenticity of the
Mine, at least to his own satisfaction, and brought home specimens of
its ore. His fancy wildly exaggerated its riches. There is no reason to
suppose that he knavishly invented stories about it. The Spaniards, it
is known, had worked gold mines in the vicinity. The excavations were
lying idle from the mere want of Indian labourers, whom it had just been
declared illegal to press. So lately had the workings been discontinued
that, it is said, all the best houses in San Thome belonged to refiners,
as the tools in them proved.
George Ralegh for his part refused to give up at once, though his own
views were directed rather to colonization than to mining. In boats he
ascended the Orinoko to its junction with the Guarico. In his absence
the town was repeatedly attacked. English prisoners were barbarously
treated. Several, it is asserted, were tortured or butchered. After
twenty-five days it was determined to retire, and fire was set to the
place. Altogether the English had lost 250 men. They collected some
spoil estimated as worth 40,000 reals. Partly it consisted of church
ornaments, and a couple of gold ingots reserved for the King of Spain's
royalty, but chiefly of tobacco. Three negroes and two Indians were
carried off. One of the Indians accompanied the fleet to England,
returning afterwards to Guiana.
[Sidenote: _At Puncto Gallo._]
Ralegh meanwhile had stationed himself at Puncto Gallo, now Point
Hicacos, on the south-west of Trinidad. He arrived on December 17, 1617,
and there he stayed. On account of currents he seems to have thought at
one time that he might be obliged to change his moorings. No more
conclusive proof can be given of the spirit of the King's _Declaration_
of November, 1618, than that it alleges him not to have minded, but
rather to have anticipated, the certain starvation of the returning land
forces through such a removal from the fixed rendezvous. He wrote to
Winwood on March 21, 1618, that with five ships he had daily attended
the armada of Spain. But he had been left in comparative tranquillity.
Attacks from San Giuseppe he easily repulsed, with no more serious loss
than of one sailor and a boy. He amused his leisure by hunting for
balsams and other indigenous rarities. Six days after the fight Keymis
sent a letter describing Walter's death, and eulogizing his
'extraordinary valour, forwardness, and constant vigour of mind.' An
Indian had already brought confused tidings of the occupation of San
Thome. Keymis's letter was dated January 8. It arrived, it has been
reckoned, on February 14. The day is believed to be fixed by the abrupt
closing of Ralegh's journal. After his son's death, 'with whom,' he
wrote to Winwood, 'all respect of this world hath taken end in me,' he
had no heart to continue it. With the letter Keymis despatched a parcel
of scattered papers. A cart-load, he mentioned, remained behind. The
consignment is supposed to have included the King of Spain's and his
Custom-house Secretary's letters of warning to Diego Palomeque. A copy,
some say the original, of Ralegh's own letter to James was in the
bundle. Ralegh is reported to have conveyed it home, and to have shown
it to the Lords of the Council.
[Sidenote: _Suicide of Keymis._]
[Sidenote: _Harsh Judgments._]
On March 2 the survivors of the expedition rejoined him at Puncto Gallo.
Keymis had to confess his crowning failure. Ralegh did not banish him
from his board, as the _Declaration_ noted with a sneer; but he
upbraided him severely for having stopped short of the Mine. He declared
that, as Walter was killed, he should not have cared, and he did not
believe Keymis cared, if a hundred more had been lost in opening the
Mine, so the King had been satisfied, and Ralegh's reputation been
saved. There was no kinder or more generous leader than he. His
dependents and servants worshipped him. The treatment of Keymis is the
one instance in his career of harshness to a follower. He would see no
force in Keymis's apologies. He told him that he must answer to the King
and the State. Keymis had composed a letter of excuse to Lord Arundel, a
chief promoter of the expedition. This he submitted to Ralegh, and asked
for his approval. He refused it absolutely: 'Is that,' inquired Keymis,
'your resolution? I know,'--or, according to the _Apology_, 'I know
not'--'then, Sir, what course to take.' He went away, and very soon a
shot was heard. Keymis told a page, whom Ralegh sent to his cabin door,
that he had fired the pistol because it had long been charged. Half an
hour afterwards his cabin-boy found him stabbed to the heart. The pistol
shot had only broken a rib, and he had finished the work with a dagger.
Poor Keymis, who was fifty-five at his death, was no 'rough old sailor,'
no mere 'sturdy mariner,' as Mr. Gardiner styles the ex-Fellow of
Balliol, the writer of Latin verses, the fluent and argumentative
chronicler. He was emotional and imaginative. He was fated to be as evil
a genius to the leader he adored as selfish, unstable Cobham. He brought
much woe upon his friends and himself through blunders committed from
the most generous motives, and he was very sternly judged. If the
supposed message to Cobham, which formed one of the most damaging
charges in 1603 against Ralegh, were a gloss of his own, concocted from
casual talk, he paid for his indiscretion by enduring imprisonment, and
braving threats of torture, with a noble fidelity. He suffered yet more
cruel penalties for having vaunted the mineral riches of Guiana to
enhance the merit of its discovery, until the mirage ended by beguiling
his admired chief into irretrievable ruin. Not even death redeemed his
memory. His comrades decried him as an impostor and deceiver. 'False to
all men, a hateful fellow, a mere Machiavel,' Captain Parker called him,
because he did not find his gold mine. Ralegh, for whom he had ventured
and borne much, writes of him as an obstinate, self-willed man, and of
his doleful end with a coldness which only gnawing despair can explain,
not excuse.
[Sidenote: _Ship Gossip._]
The expedition had been vexed by storms and fever on its passage to
Guiana. None of its objects on the Orinoko had been attained. To the
last it continued disappointing and disappointed; 'continually pursued
with misfortunes,' wrote Beecher to Camden, 'as if to prove that God did
take pleasure to confound the wisdom of men.' Ralegh already had not
been free from danger of discord in his fleet. A page had invented a
tale that he kept in his cabin L24,200, which had led some of his crew
to conspire to leave him ashore in Trinidad, and sail away. But hitherto
he had maintained his personal ascendency. The collapse at San Thome
shook the faith of his captains in him. Henceforth they expected him to
prefer their wisdom to his own. Whitney and Wollaston planned the
plunder of homeward-bound Spanish ships. They would have liked him to
abet them. They warned him that he was a lost man if he returned to
England. When they could not persuade him, they resolved to go off by
themselves. At Grenada they carried their intention into effect. Mr.
Jones, chaplain of the Flying Chudleigh, says Ralegh authorised any
captain to part if he pleased, as the aim of the voyage could no longer
be accomplished. The chaplain may have had the offer narrated to him by
a captain who desired his freedom. In itself it is too inconsistent with
all we know of Ralegh's views to be credible. He showed the utmost
anxiety to keep his forces together. For this purpose he was willing to
let restless spirits hope for indulgence of their thirst both for spoil
and for revenge by a combined attempt upon the Mexico fleet. Out of the
chaos of ship gossip, the private wishes of officers, and conjectures
about their commander's probable intentions, James's apologists wove a
theory that he had never meant to seek for a mine, and had always
intended to seize the treasure-ships. He was alleged to have confessed
on his return that, before the mining project failed, he had proposed
the capture of the fleet in the event of its failure. He was said to
have admitted in talk with Sir Thomas Wilson in the Tower, that, after
the return from San Thome, he formally enunciated to his officers a
design to that effect. He was said to have told them that he had a
French commission which empowered him to take any Spanish vessel beyond
the Canaries. The allegation that, after the collapse of the expedition
to San Thome, he had meant to sail for the Carib islands, and leave the
land companies to their fate, insinuated that he was projecting some
great piracy. His own subsequent contradiction of the issue to him of
any commission from the French Crown has been represented by modern
writers as a dishonest prevarication. He had, it is asserted, a French
commission, though from the French Lord High Admiral, not from the King
of France.
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's real Project._]
Much of this indictment rests upon tainted evidence. When the testimony
is respectable, it is for the most part outweighed by Ralegh's own word.
At all events, for his alleged intention to have been of avail for the
support of a criminal charge it was necessary to prove some act in
conformity with it. None could be instanced except the San Thome
collision itself, which the Spaniards had brought on. Whether he would
have embraced a good opportunity for anything like buccaneering it is
difficult to decide. Though the rumours of the fleet, reckless words of
his own, other words uttered for some very dissimilar purpose,
admissions dishonourably drawn from him and craftily pieced together,
and a phrase in a heart-broken letter to his heart-broken wife, need not
be accepted as conclusive, it may be conceded that they accord with his
and the prevalent English temper. For him England and Spain in America
were always at war. 'To break peace where there is no peace,' he wrote,
'it cannot be. The Spaniards give us no peace there.' He stated the
literal truth. Spaniards treated unlicensed English voyagers to any part
of South America as pirates and felons. He claimed the right of
reprisals; and public opinion in England was on his side. English law
was not. He might have been amenable to it had he acted upon his idea of
Anglo-Spanish reciprocity, and in conformity with the schemes attributed
to him by many of his own officers. But he did nothing of the kind. The
projects he is known to have entertained indicate that his fancy was
travelling in a different direction. His original and desperate thought,
after the return of the launches, had still been bounded by Guiana. His
wish was to lead a second expedition to San Thome. He meant to leave his
body by his son's, or bring out of Keymis's or other mines so much gold
ore as should satisfy the King that he had propounded no vain thing.
Carew Ralegh's account was that the plan, perhaps on reflection modified
from that, was to revictual in Virginia, and return in the spring to
Guiana.
Whatever the exact eventual shape of the design, Whitney and Wollaston
thwarted its execution by their desertion. At a council of war it was
determined to make for home, by way, according to Ralegh's original
programme, of Newfoundland. The ships stayed awhile at St.
Christopher's. Ralegh took the opportunity to write on March 21 to the
friendly Secretary of State. He was not aware that Winwood had died, to
his irreparable loss, in the previous October. He had been, like Prince
Henry, under the medical care of Dr. Theodore Mayerne, physician to the
King and Queen. Mayerne had high repute, and is eminent in English
medical history as having introduced the use of calomel. But he is
described by a cynical contemporary as generally unfortunate with his
patients. The headstrong but generous Secretary was succeeded by
Naunton, a ripe Cambridge scholar, whom the favour first of Essex, then
of Overbury, and last of Villiers, perverted into a time-serving
official, 'close-fisted,' 'zealous and sullen.' For Naunton Ralegh was
by no means the hero of the young author of the _Fragmenta Regalia_. By
unsympathetic eyes his epistle was to be read. As interpreted by Naunton
it was sure to aggravate the ill-will of the King, who would reasonably
regard much of it as a censure upon him.
[Sidenote: _Letter to Winwood._]
[Sidenote: _Letter to Lady Ralegh._]
Ralegh glanced in it at his bodily sufferings and fatigue: 'There is
never a base slave in the fleet hath taken the pains and care that I
have done; hath slept so little, and travailed so much.' He bewailed his
misfortunes, 'the greatest and sharpest that have ever befallen any
man.' His brains, he said, were broken with them. So sincere an admirer
as Mr. Kingsley takes him literally, and holds that 'his life really
ended on the return of Keymis from San Thome.' His contemporaries did
not think it. For them he was never even an old man; and it is one of
the phenomena in the national feeling towards and about him. To the
popular mind he was to the end, though portraits might show him grey and
wasted, the brilliant and gallant Knight of Cadiz. Least of all for his
enemies was he ever aged and broken. They had too acute a perception of
his ability to resist them. They knew that he preserved his powers
intact, and was not to be trampled on with impunity. He brought now an
all but direct charge of treachery against the King: 'It pleased his
Majesty 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 men, and burden of my ships; with
what ordnance every ship carried; which was made known to the Spanish
Ambassador, and by him in post sent to the King of Spain.' His future
looked to him profoundly black. He glanced, as he well might without
treason, at the contingency of foreign service, whether in Denmark,
France, or Holland: 'What shall become of me now I know not.'
Notwithstanding the royal commission, which, like others, he
misdescribed as 'under the Great Seal,' and not the Privy Seal, he was
aware that he was 'unpardoned in England.' He went on: 'My poor estate
is consumed; and whether any other Prince or State will give me bread I
know not.' From St. Christopher's he wrote also to his wife. He had told
Winwood he durst not write to her from fear of renewing the sorrow for
her son. Yet he could not be silent, though he confessed he knew not how
to comfort her: 'God knows, I never knew what sorrow meant till now.
Comfort your heart, dearest Bess, I shall sorrow for us both. I shall
sorrow the less because I have not long to sorrow, because not long to
live.' He expressed a hope, which must be allowed to be ambiguous, that
'God will send us somewhat before we return.' He bids her tell about
Keymis to Lord Northumberland, Sir John Leigh, and Silvanus Skory, a
London merchant, who had in verse dissuaded him from the Guiana
adventure altogether.
[Sidenote: _Sympathy._]
From St. Christopher's he sent home his fly-boat, under his cousin
Herbert, who afterwards suffered in purse for the association with him.
The vessel was laden with 'a rabble of idle rascals, which I know will
not spare to wound me; but my friends will not believe them; and for the
rest I care not.' This 'scum of men' being gone, he told Winwood he
should be able, if he lived, to keep the sea till the end of August,
with four reasonably good ships. His object he did not specify. Off
Newfoundland the soldiers in his ship, he declared, wanted him to turn
pirate with them. They compelled him to swear he would not go home
without their leave. Among them were four convicted criminals. These
were afraid to set foot in England unless Ralegh obtained their pardons
from the Crown. He compromised by landing them at Kinsale, where he
touched after a storm had scattered his ships. There is no record that
Boyle or other old friends came now to salute him. But Sir Oliver St.
John, at the time Lord Deputy, wrote word on May 30 to George Carew of
his arrival, probably on May 24. Three ships, commanded by Sir John
Ferne, Captain Pennington, and Captain King, happened also to have taken
refuge in Kinsale harbour. St. John expressed his deep sorrow for
Ralegh's ill-success, which he attributed to 'the failing and mutinying
of those that ought rather to have died with him than left him.' He
instructed Lord Thomond to 'secure those captains, mutineers, and their
ships.' Captain King was the one loyal man among them. In the
_Declaration_ of 1618 Ralegh was alleged, as they may believe who will,
to have offered the Destiny at Kinsale to his officers, and also
previously off Newfoundland to some of his chief captains, if they would
only set him aboard a French bark, 'as being loath to put his head under
the King's girdle.'