PART OF DE LAET’S MAP, 1630.
The voyages to Guiana are related by Ralegh himself.[225] The journal of the second voyage is given by Schomburgk from the original manuscript in the British Museum. The collections of the works of Ralegh show his several other writings concerning Guiana, among which are an “Apology for the Voyage to Guiana,” written in 1618, on his way from Plymouth to London as a prisoner; to gain time for the preparation of which he feigned sickness at Salisbury. Expecting to be put to death, he was determined before he died fully and elaborately to justify to the world his last expedition, which had been grossly misrepresented. It was not published till 1650.
In Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. iii., there is published a letter, written Nov. 17, 1617, “from the River Aliana, on the coast of Guiana,” by a gentleman of the fleet, who signs his initials “R. M.” It is entitled Newes of Sir Walter Rawleigh, and gives the orders he issued to the commanders of his fleet, and some account of the incidents of the expedition.[226]
In Sir Walter Ralegh’s History of the World he often illustrates his subject by the incidents of his own life, and thus we have in the book much of an autobiography.
NOTE.—At the charge of an American subscription a Ralegh window has been placed in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, London; and a sermon, Sir Walter Raleigh and America, was preached by the Rev. Canon Farrar, at the unveiling, May 14, 1882.