Henley Street

July 30, 1615

I came across several old letters this morning. Raleigh’s is hard to decipher:

Portsmouth

March 9, 1608

Will Shakespear—

We have taken an old carrack, the Madre de Dios, and spoils clutter her deck as we lie at anchor in Portsmouth Bay, spoils, things the Queen would grow sullen over, wanting them. Some of them bloody and soaked with spray, they have a cheapness about them, a liar’s eye. You and Ben would know how to laugh and knock them about. Here’s a green gem in a brooch a negro queen must have worn, its horse’s eye staring through a slash of sail canvas. Here’s a rope of skulls carved in brownish ivory; here’s a tiara ornamented with pale yellow gems I can’t iden­tify...a pile of brass bracelets alongside a smashed cutlass. As for me, I’ll take the wind in the rigging and a clear landfall.

How are your plays going this season? Sometimes, when a sea rages, Macbeth howls in my ear, Othello lifts his hand as stars dive below the washed horizon.

Shun the Queen’s condemnations. It is usually her free­dom—seldom ours. Stay clean!

But if I could write like you I would try to destroy political chicanery, though meddling with the Crown may spell my doom.