Anthropology, natural history, or other scientific subjects, had no attractions for the adventurers, whose attention, and such powers as were left with them, were absorbed in their conflicts with storm and tempest, cold, hunger, and nakedness. After parting company they never again reunited, or in any of the separated ships made any attempt to carry out the objects of the expedition. Almost all perished miserably. It is stated that Davis, whom Cavendish charged with treachery and desertion, did all that was possible to find and rejoin his leader, but without success. Long after the separation of the fleet, Davis returned to Port Desire, and three times attempted unsuccessfully to pass through the Straits in search for Cavendish. Davis and a few more survived their terrible hardships. Out of a crew of seventy-six men who sailed from England, only a remnant of fifteen lived to return with Davis, in misery and weakness so great that they could neither “take in or heave out a saile.” Davis, with the distressed survivors, arrived off Bearhaven, Ireland, on 11th June 1593, fully a year after the death and burial of Cavendish at sea.
Cavendish was far from faultless. He was passionate and impetuous, and was still young at the end of his adventurous life. He was a University man, a bred aristocrat, a courtier, with a contempt for humanitarian doctrines and practices. Society, as it was constituted then, has to share the blame of his excesses, and especially his recklessness of human life. It was a comparatively venial offence in those days to fire into a crowd of South Sea Islanders with as little hesitation as if they had been a flock of wild ducks. His high spirit, courage, and intrepidity are, however, indisputable.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S FAVOURITE MINISTER.
CHAPTER V. AMERICAN COLONISATION SCHEMES.
Endowed with a rare combination of high qualities and capability, Sir Walter Raleigh may be pronounced one of the most distinguished men of the Elizabethan era. He approved himself a brave soldier, an intrepid sailor, and a thorough disciplinarian; in other directions he was a learned scholar, a profound philosopher, an eloquent orator, and an elegant courtier.
Raleigh’s family traced its lineage from before the Conquest, and Walter could claim descent from, and connection with, three of the best Devonshire houses—the Gilberts, the Carews, and the Champernouns. His father, Walter Raleigh the elder, was the second husband of Catherine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernoun of Modbury. By a former husband, Otto Gilbert, this lady had two sons, Humphrey and Adrian, destined to distinguish themselves as navigators and colonists, with whom Walter Raleigh was intimately associated in their enterprises.
Walter Raleigh was born, according to Camden, in 1552, at Hayes Barton, East Budleigh, a farmstead in Devonshire, pleasantly situated near the coast.
Information touching Raleigh’s education and the early part of his life is vague and meagre, few facts being on record concerning him prior to 1569, when, it is stated, he left Oxford, where he was first a resident at Christ Church, from which he removed to Oriel. It is supposed that he commenced at Oxford his acquaintance with Sir Philip Sydney, Hakluyt, and Camden.
Camden states, in his Annales, that Raleigh was one of a hundred gentlemen volunteers who proceeded to France with Henry Champernoun, Raleigh’s cousin, to the assistance of the Huguenots. The service of the English contingent appears to have commenced about the end of the year 1569. References are made by Raleigh in his History of the World to the Huguenot troubles, and his own connection with them; amongst others, to the conduct of the Protestants at the battle of Jarnac, after the death of the Prince of Condé; and to the retreat at Moncontour, of which he was an eye-witness. It is conjectured that Raleigh spent about six years in France in active service.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.