His friends lingered on the stage after visitors had been asked to quit, and Raleigh himself requested them to leave, saying smilingly, “I have a long journey to go, and must take my leave of you.” Turning to the headsman, he asked to see his axe. “Let me see it, I prithee,” he said, as the executioner hesitated. “Dost thou think that I am afraid of it?” Feeling its keen edge, he turned to the sheriff, to whom he said with a smile, “’Tis a sharp medicine, but one that will cure me of all my diseases.” The executioner, greatly moved, begged Raleigh to pardon him for this cruel duty his office imposed. Raleigh answered him by a kindly touch on the shoulders and assuring words. Turning to the people, to whom he bowed right and left, Raleigh cried aloud, “Give me heartily your prayers.” He then lay down, and gave the directions to the headsman, “When I stretch forth my hands, despatch me.” After a brief space, in which he was supposed to be engaged in silent prayer, he put out his hands, but the man was completely overcome, and could not perform his office. Again he repeated the signal, and yet a third time, saying, “What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!” At last he did strike, and with two rapidly delivered blows completely severed Raleigh’s head from his body. According to custom, the head was held up in view of the people, but it is not recorded that they were called upon to behold the head of a traitor!
“All Europe,” says a biographer of last century, “was astonished at the injustice and cruelty of this proceeding; but Gondamor, the Spanish ambassador, thirsted for his blood, on account of his having been the scourge of Spain during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and King James durst not refuse him the life of a man who, as a soldier, a scholar, and a statesman, was the greatest ornament to his country. This mean-spirited prince, to his eternal infamy, soon after ordered Cortington, one of the residents of Spain, to inform the Spanish Court how able a man Sir Walter Raleigh was, and yet to give them content, he had not spared him, though, by preserving him, he would have given great satisfaction to his subjects, and had at his command, upon all occasions, as useful a man as served any prince in Christendom.”
THE PLANTING OF THE GREAT AMERICAN COLONIES.
CHAPTER VII. “TO FRAME SUCH JUST AND EQUAL LAWS AS SHALL BE MOST CONVENIENT.”
After the accession of James to the throne of England in 1603, very little happened of interest in connection with naval affairs, except the unfortunate expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh already referred to.
In 1617 there was an important sea-fight with the Turks, near Cagliari. Towards the close of December 1616 the ship Dolphin, Captain Edward Nicholl, left Zante, one of the Ionian Isles, with a full cargo for the Thames. She was a craft of 220 tons, with a crew of thirty-six men and two boys, and armed with nineteen pieces of cast ordnance and five “murderers,”—a name given to small pieces of cannon made to load at the breech. On the 8th January 1617 she sighted Sardinia. There was a west wind, and at nine in the morning she stood inshore for Cagliari. About noon she was close to two watch-towers from which cannon were fired, as a signal that the guard wished to speak with the crew. The object, not clearly understood, was to warn them that Turkish war vessels were cruising off the coast. Early on 12th January they saw a large vessel steering towards them. She was manned by armed men. Soon five other vessels were descried. The ports were open, and they were evidently bent on hostility. Preparations were accordingly made for battle, when the captain thus addressed his men: “Countrymen and fellows, you see into what an exigency it has pleased God to suffer us to fall. Let us remember that we are but men, and must of necessity die—where, and when, and how, is of God’s appointment; but if it be His pleasure that this must be the last of our days, His will be done; and let us, for His glory, our soul’s welfare, our country’s honour, and the credit of ourselves, fight valiantly to the last gasp. Let us prefer a noble death to a life of slavery; and if we die, let us die to gain a better life.”
The crew responded by a loud assent and cheers. The leading Turkish vessel had fifteen hundred men on board. After a tremendous struggle, in which one after the other of the enemy attacked the Dolphin, she got safely into Cagliari, with the loss of seventeen men. The captains of three of the Turkish war vessels were Englishmen.
THE MAYFLOWER.
But the chief event of this period was the establishment of the great English Colonies in North America. The first region colonised was Virginia—so called, as has been stated, in honour of Queen Elizabeth. A belt of twelve degrees on the American coast—from Cape Fear to Halifax—was set apart to be colonised by two rival companies. The first of these was composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants in and about London; the second of knights, gentlemen, and merchants in the west of England. On the 19th December 1606, a squadron of three vessels, the largest not exceeding 100 tons burden, sailed for “the dear strand of Virginia, earth’s only paradise.” Michael Drayton, the patriot poet of “Albion’s glorious isle,” cheered them on their voyage in the following lines:—
“Go, and in regions far,