And for the effecting these traitorous purposes, Cobham should return by the Isle of Jersey, and should there find Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain of the said isle, and take counsel of him for the distributing the aforesaid crowns, as the occasion or discontentment of the subjects should give cause and way.
That Raleigh must be found guilty was a foregone conclusion. The trial was a cruel mockery of the accused; a flagrant outrage upon the spirit, even the mere name, of justice. One of the judges at least—Gawdy—confessed on his death-bed that the procedure had violated and “degraded the justice of England.” Coke attacked the apparently deserted and friendless defendant with uncontrollable ferocity, with a shameless abuse of his office. Instead of attempting to prove his case by admissible evidence and legitimate arguments, he discharged upon the defendant a torrent of coarse invective, that was utterly disgraceful in the public prosecutor in a State trial. His case was doubtless aggravated by the feeling that the man whom he was privileged with permission to abuse was his superior, and bore himself with a self-command and dignity of demeanour that Coke could appreciate in another, but to which it was not given to himself to attain.
The sole evidence(?) against Raleigh consisted of the alleged declarations of persons with whom he was not confronted, as he demanded to be. Coke, in successive speeches, denounced the defendant with insensate rage, and in disgustingly clumsy phrases, as the “notoriousest traitor,” the “vilest viper,” the “absolutest traitor that ever came to the bar.” Raleigh had great difficulty in obtaining a hearing, in checking the rushing stream of violent abuse. “You try me,” said he, “as by the Spanish Inquisition, if you proceed only by the circumstances, without two witnesses.” He pleaded that “by the statute law and by God’s word it was required that there be two witnesses. Bear me if I ask for only one; the common law is my support in this. Call my accuser before my face, and I have done. All I hear against me is but this accusation of Cobham. Which of his accusations has he subscribed to or avouched?” Cobham, it appears, had made eight different confessions, each conflicting in some points, or varying from all the others. Coke’s answer to Raleigh’s reasonable plea was to heap more violent, utterly irrelevant abuse upon him,—“Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived. I will make it appear that there never lived a viler viper on the face of the earth than thou. I want words to express sufficiently thy viperous treasons.” “You want words, indeed,” interposed Raleigh, “for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times; you speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and uncivilly.”
Raleigh defended himself with signal ability, but in vain. Popham summed up strongly against him, and the packed jury found him guilty. The rumours in circulation against Raleigh had been accepted, and before the trial popular fury raged against him. The effect of the trial, the cruel, crushing injustice with which he was treated, caused a reaction in his favour. So gross and palpable was the injustice done to him, that even in the High Court, Popham was hissed and Coke was hooted, by the portion of the public present during the proceedings. The revolting terms of the sentence are too hideous to be recited. Many weary years elapsed between Raleigh’s sentence and his execution.
A number of persons really concerned in the conspiracy were tried and condemned about the same time as Raleigh, and were executed. The execution of others, including Raleigh, was stayed by the king, although Raleigh had no knowledge of this. The Bishop of Winchester, who was appointed to prepare him for execution, gave him no hope. Believing himself at death’s door, he wrote a touching farewell letter to his wife, in which he says:—
“Know it, dear wife, that your son is the child of a true man, and who, in his own respect, despiseth death and all his misshapen and ugly forms. I cannot write much. God knows how hardly I stole this time, when all sleep; and it is time to separate my thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, which living was denied you; and either lay it at Sherborne, if the land continue yours, or in Exeter Church, by my father and mother. I can write no more. Time and death call me away.”
From Wolvesley Castle, in which Raleigh was confined after his trial, he was, after having received the announcement that his life was not to be taken, removed to the Tower of London on the 16th December 1603, and remained there a State prisoner for twelve years. He, of course, lost his various offices and sources of income, excepting Sherborne, which was coveted and greedily desired by court favourites and others. Ultimately the estate was taken by the king, and £8000 paid as purchase-money for the benefit of Lady Raleigh and her children. Many of Raleigh’s voluminous writings were composed during the period of his confinement in the Tower.
The queen, who made the acquaintance of Raleigh about the year 1606, was very favourably disposed towards him, as was also Prince Henry, a most promising prince, who became warmly attached to the illustrious prisoner, and would probably have been successful in obtaining his release, had he been spared. He obtained from the king, indeed, a promise of Raleigh’s release, but died before the stipulated date had arrived. Influence on Raleigh’s behalf continued to be used with the king, who at last gave way to the importunities of the captive’s friends, and a warrant for his release from the Tower was signed by James on the 30th January 1616.
An express condition involved in Raleigh’s liberation was that he should proceed at once to undertake preparations for, and to personally conduct, another expedition to Guiana. This he set about with promptitude and energy, investing in it the whole of what remained of his fortune. Raleigh and his friends contributed to the enterprise an aggregate of about £15,000. Raleigh was by royal commission appointed commander of the expedition, which consisted of the Destiny, of 440 tons, which was built under Raleigh’s personal direction, and six smaller vessels.
The fleet sailed in March 1617. It could not be regarded with hopeful confidence. Raleigh’s description of the personnel of the expedition is decidedly unsatisfactory. “A company of volunteers who for the most part had neither seen the sea nor the wars; who, some forty gentlemen excepted, were the very scum of the world, drunkards, blasphemers, and such others as their fathers, brothers, and friends thought it an exceeding good gain to be discharged of, with the hazard of some thirty, forty, or fifty pound.” Raleigh was commander of the fleet, and his son Walter captain of the Destiny. Various delays occurred. On the 12th June the fleet left Plymouth, but soon got separated by stormy weather, and some of the ships turned back to Falmouth. The fleet reassembled in Cork harbour, and remained there waiting for a favourable wind for nearly six weeks. While thus detained, Raleigh disposed as completely as possible, and on the best terms he could command, of his remaining Irish leases and other interests in Ireland. The fleet called at the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands. After encountering much rough weather, they sighted, on the 11th November, Cape Orange, the most northerly point of the coast of Brazil; on the 14th they anchored at the mouth of the Cayenne River; and Raleigh, who had been struck down by fever, was conveyed from the choky cabin to his barge. From this place he writes to Lady Raleigh: “To tell you 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, also, Goodwin, the English lad left as exchange hostage on the occasion of his first visit, twenty-two years before, came to do homage to his old master. He was voluble in the Indian tongue, but had almost lost ability to express himself in English.