When their attempts fucceeded not this way ; their next designe was then to try, what might bee done in the Northern Coasts of America : and the first undertaker of these voyages was Mr. Martin Frobisher: who was afterward feconded by Mr. Iohn Davis. By meanes of all which Navigations, many errours of the Ancients, and their great ignorance was discovered.
But now that all these their endeavours fucceeded not, our Kingdome at that time being well furnished in fhips, and impatient of idlenefse : they resolved at length to adventure upon other parts. And first Sir Humphrey Gilbert with great courage and Forces attempted to make a discovery of those parts of America, which were yet unknowne to the Spaniard : but the successe was not answerable. Which attempt of his, was afterward more prosperously prosecuted by that honourable Gentleman Sir Walter Rawleigh: to whose meanes Virginia was first discovered unto us, the Generall of his Forces being Sir Richard Greenville : which Countrey was afterwards very exactly furveighed and described by Mr. Thomas Harriot.
This William Sanderson, the patron of Mollineux, Hood, and Hues, was a rich and liberal London merchant, who had married a niece of Raleigh. He contributed largely to Sir Walter’s first reconnoitring expedition in 1584 under Amidas and Barlow, and was afterwards a liberal adventurer and supporter of Raleigh in all his colonial schemes. He was fond of the science of geography, and contributed largely to the preparation and publication of the globes of Mollineux, and the Descriptions of them by Hood and Hues in 1592 and 1594. He was also a good friend of all Raleigh’s friends, and acted as Sir Walter’s fiscal agent in regard to the Wine monopoly. On being called upon for a settlement of the large amount due, as Raleigh supposed, after his imprisonment in the Tower, Sanderson denied his indebtedness, was sued, cast into the debtors’ jail, and died in poverty. His son published severe comments against Raleigh.
Robert Hues, who was an intimate friend and associate of Hariot, was born at Hertford in 1554. He became a poor scholar at Brazen nose, and was afterwards at St Mary’s Hall with Hariot. He took his degree of A.B.in 1579. He is said to have been a good Greek scholar, and after leaving the University travelled and became an eminent geographer and mathematician. He attracted the attention, probably through Raleigh, of that noble patron of learning Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, who took him into his service, made him one of his scientific companions while in the Tower, supported him partly at Sion, intrusted him to instruct his children, and finally sent him to Oxford as tutor at Christ Church of his eldest surviving son, Algernon Percy, who on the death of his father on gunpowder treason day 1632, became the 10th Earl of Northumberland. Hues died at Oxford the 24th of May, 1632, and was buried in the cathedral of Christ Church, according to the inscription on his monument. He is mentioned by Chapman in his translation of Homer’s Works [ 1616 ] as ‘another right learned, honest, and entirely loved friend of mine.’ See infra, p. 183.
In 1595 Hariot was mentioned as a distinguished man of science in his Seaman’s Secrets by Captain John Davis the navigator, a friend and partner of Raleigh.
On the eleventh of July 1596 Hariot under peculiar circumstances wrote a long and confidential letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Chief Secretary of State, in the interests of Raleigh’s Guiana projects. The letter is here given in full, as it shows better than anything else the close and confidential relations existing between Sir Walter and Hariot at that time. Raleigh had returned from Guiana, his first El Dorado expedition, in August 1595, and had in the mean time employed such energy and enterprise that within about five months he had fitted out and dispatched his second El Dorado fleet under his friend Captain Keymis. This second expedition returned to Plymouth in June 1596, a few days after Raleigh had gone with Essex and Howard of Effingham on that world-renowned expedition against Cadiz. Sir Walter appears to have left his affairs in the hands of his ever faithful Hariot, and hence this sensible and timely letter in the absence of his patron. There appears to have been no complaint against Keymis; but the master of his ship, Samuel Mace, seems to have been less discreet. The letter tells its own story, and gives a vivid picture of the intelligent earnestness of Sir Walter respecting Guiana, and at the same time the earnest intelligence of Hariot during Raleigh’s absence in Spain.
It has been denied that Raleigh really expected to find the El Dorado in either his first expedition of 1595 or last in 1617, but this letter goes to show that both he and Hariot had firm faith in the scheme. Indeed in a German book of travels just published, entitled ‘Aus den Llanos. Schildenung einer naturwisscn-schaftlichen Reise nach Venezuela, Von Carl Sachs, Leipzig, 1879,’ the writer states that the export of gold from Spanish Guiana in 1875 was 79,496 ounces. He says that the richest mine, that of Callao, has of late years returned as much as 500 per centum. After briefly narrating the expeditions of Raleigh, which had been preceded by various Spanish expeditions, he adds: ‘Now at this day, after nearly three centuries, the riches sought for have been actually found In the very country where these unfortunate efforts were made.’ Hariot’s letter is as follows:
LETTER OF THOMAS HARIOT TO MR. SECRETARY
SIR ROBERT CECIL.
From the original holograph in the Cecil Papers at Hatfield, vol. xliii,
At first printed in Edward Edward’s Life of
Raleigh, vol. ii, page 420.