The object of the expedition was to destroy the navy at Weather-bound. Ferrol, and capture the Indian treasure ships. It was intended also to take and garrison Terceira, and any others of the Azores. Hence it has been known as the Islands or Island Voyage. The enterprise commenced ill. Four days of storm drove the armament back to Plymouth. There it lay for a month. Essex was in despair. Ralegh suggested to Cecil that the Queen might send a comforting message. A truer man, he said, there could not be upon the earth; but God having turned the heavens with such fury against the fleet, it was a matter beyond human power, valour, or wit to resist. The programme had to be revised. Essex and Ralegh rode post to Court to consult the Queen and Council. The decision was that all the soldiers but a thousand Dutchmen should be disbanded. The attack on Ferrol was to be limited to an attempt by Ralegh to fire the ships in the harbour. Essex was forbidden to participate, whether from regard for his safety, or to secure to his subordinate a free hand. The modification was in conformity with Ralegh's advice. He had expressed to Cecil his doubt of the prudence of prosecuting the original design. The Spanish force at Ferrol he thought too strong, and the season too advanced. He and Essex returned together to Plymouth, where the Earl was his guest on board the Warspright. 'Her Majesty may now be sure his Lordship shall sleep the sounder, though he fare the worse, by being with me; for I am an excellent watchman at sea,' wrote Ralegh. The fare would not be extremely rough. Ralegh could bear hardships, if necessary, anywhere. He was ready at any moment, and in any weather, to go to sea, though, like Lord Nelson, he was liable to visitations of sea-sickness. But at sea, as elsewhere, he liked comfort, refinement, and even luxury, if compatible with duty. He had many servants. He took chests of books. He hung his walls with pictures, and furnished his cabin sumptuously. Among the treasures of the Carews of Beddington was a bedstead, reputed to have been part of his ship furniture, with upholstery of green silk, and with gilt dolphins for legs. The stately chair, which was in the late Mr. Godwin's collection of the chairs of great men, may have been its companion.
At Plymouth the fleet delayed weather-bound till August 18. It had not been five days at sea before another tempest arose off Cape Ortegal. Carew in the St. Matthew was driven into Rochelle. Eventually he had to return to Plymouth. The wind blew out of Ferrol, and the curtailed scheme for an assault on it, and on Terceira too, had to be abandoned. All that remained was to intercept the Indian ships. The fleet was divided by stress of weather. Ralegh wrote to Cecil on September 8 that in ten days he had never come so much as into bed or cabin. He did not rejoin the main body till Mischief-making. Essex had been ten days at the Island of Flores. Essex 'seemed to be the joyfullest man living for our arrival,' says Arthur Gorges. Some had tried to persuade him that Ralegh had kept away intentionally with the victuallers; but Essex told Ralegh he saw through 'their scandalous and cankered dispositions.' Gorges believed he spoke sincerely; 'for though the Earl had many doubts and jealousies buzzed into his ears against Sir Walter, yet I have often observed that both in his greatest actions of service, and in the times of his chiefest recreations, he would ever accept of his counsel and company before many others who thought themselves more in his favour.'
At Flores it was determined at a council of war that Essex and Ralegh should lay waste Fayal. Essex sailed away. Ralegh following arrived first. The forts fired; and the islanders began carrying off their goods to the interior. Ralegh still paused. The officers, except a few of Essex's sycophants, like Sir Guilly Meyricke, chafed. Delay, as Monson, no admirer of Ralegh, has intimated in his narrative of the affair, might have enabled the Spaniards to provide themselves better. Ralegh's own patience was not inexhaustible. He cannot have been sorry to be afforded a reasonable pretext for separate action. He states in the History of the World that his delay was in deference to the desire of some in the company who would have 'reserved the title of such an exploit, though it was not great, for Attack on Fayal. a greater person.' When the difficulty of the enterprise was urged, he felt bound to prove by example that the 'defence of a coast is harder than its invasion.' On the fourth day he landed. He took no soldiers, but only 260 seamen and gentlemen volunteers, with some ordnance, in pinnaces. They were met by double the number of Spaniards, and by a sharp fire. So staggered were his men that Ralegh had to order his own barge to be rowed full upon the beach. Other boats followed. Landing, the invaders waded through the water, clambered over rocks, and forced their way up to and through the narrow entrance. The town itself, called Villa Dorta, was four miles off, and a fort guarded it. Up to the front deliberately marched Ralegh, with his leading staff in his hand. He wore no armour except his collar. His men were less serenely indifferent to the shot, especially the Low Countries soldiers, who were now come ashore to his help. The garrison, driven from the lower works, mounted to the higher. Ralegh, perceiving a disinclination in his force to go on, preceded with Gorges and eight or ten servants. Amidst a hail of ball and stones, he in his white, and Gorges in his red, scarf, presented excellent marks. They discovered the best passage, and then their men came up. But by the time they reached the fort and town both had been deserted.
Early next morning, September 22, the rest of the fleet, which had been roving after the treasure ships, was descried bearing in. Essex was grievously disappointed at having missed the one opportunity of glory on this unlucky expedition. Pernicious counsellors like Blount, Shirley, and Meyricke, recommended him to bring Ralegh before a court-martial. Some actually asserted he deserved to be executed. Not unconscious of the Earl's mood he paid him a state visit in his barge. He was at once taxed with breach of discipline. He was reminded of an article that none, on pain of death, should land any of the troops without the General's presence or his order. His reply was that the provision was confined to captains. It could Essex's Jealousy. not apply to him, a principal commander, with a right of succession to the supreme command, in default of Essex and Thomas Howard. Most of all, he protested against orders which he heard had been given for the arrest of the officers who accompanied him in the landing. He insisted that whatsoever his Lordship conceived to be misdone he must take it wholly on himself to answer, being at that time commander-in-chief. Essex seemed so far impressed by his arguments as to visit him at his lodgings, though he graduated the return to good humour by declining to stay and sup. In the morning he paid Essex a second visit, though not without hesitation. At one moment the prospect of ill treatment was so threatening that he was disposed to go off to his squadron and prepare to repel force. Lord Thomas Howard hindered extremities by pledging his honour to make himself a party if wrong or violence were offered. Essex could not overcome his mortification. He evinced it in a puerile manner by omitting all mention of the capture of Fayal from his official reports. Monson, who was with the expedition, expresses an opinion that if Essex, being 'by nature timorous and flexible, had not feared how it would be taken in England, Sir Walter Ralegh would have smarted for it.' In appearance the Earl ultimately allowed himself to be pacified by a solemn discussion of Ralegh's conduct, and a severe censure voted by a majority of the principal officers. According to one incredible account, Ralegh was gravely declared on the occasion to have rendered himself, by his assumption of independent power, liable to a capital penalty. Posterity will be inclined to transfer the actual condemnation to the commander-in-chief, whose freakish pique stopped only short of an outrage. But Essex had the fortune or misfortune to have all his errors popularly accounted virtues. In relating this occurrence, for instance, Vere, though he admits the matter was 'grievously aggravated by the most,' speaks of Ralegh's act as a 'crime,' which it was very good of the General to visit simply 'with a wise and noble admonition.' Sir Henry Wotton later mentions, as if it were an act of heroic self-denial, that the Earl replied to advice to send Ralegh before a court-martial: 'I would if he were my friend.'
Caracks captured
and missed.
To cement the hollow reconciliation, Villa Dorta was burnt, after the kindly usage, and the fleet went prize hunting. Three Spanish ships from the Havannah were captured. The largest, of 400 tons, was laden with gold, cochineal, indigo, civet, musk, and ambergris, beside many valuable passengers. Enough of cochineal and indigo was taken 'to be used in this realm for many years,' according to an official report. Ralegh was its captor. He expressed his pleasure either magnanimously or contemptuously: 'Although we shall be little the better, the prizes will in great measure give content to her Majesty, so that there may be no repining against this poor lord for the expense of the voyage.' They missed forty India-men, which escaped into the strong harbour of Terceira. The colonels bragged they were ready to storm the forts. Howard and Ralegh, who thought the enterprise impracticable, offered as a test of the sincerity of the soldiers to back them with 3000 seamen. Thereupon the project was dropped. At St. Michael's, Essex, according to Gorges, who it must be remembered was Ralegh's officer, wasted precious days at Villa Franca. He let his men revel in fruit and wine, and lost the moment for surprising the capital. Ralegh meanwhile, in the road, took a Brazil ship, which, when sold in England, paid the wages of the whole of the 400 sailors and soldiers of the Warspright. Through a Dutch captain's over-haste, an 1800 ton carack 'of infinite wealth, laden with the riches of the East and West,' eluded him. She ran herself aground, and was burnt by her crew. He in his barge crossed the furious surf too late to put out the flames. Very speedily she was all over thunder and lightning. Her ordnance discharged from every port, and the clouds exhaled from her spicy entrails perfumed the air for many hours. By this time autumn was come. Not too soon, the fleet, which had assembled off Villa Franca, set sail. The town was spared the customary flames, for causes unknown to Gorges. After Historian of
the Expedition. suffering from want of water, and from tempests, in which the skill of John Davys, Essex's famous pilot, proved inferior to that of Broadbent, who was Ralegh's, St. Ives was reached. Ralegh's return rejoiced Cornwall, which had been alarmed by descents of Spanish caravels. The whole tale was set forth vividly by Sir Arthur Gorges in his Relation of the Island Voyage, written in 1607, and printed, it is said, at the request of Prince Henry.
CHAPTER XIV.
Final Feud with Essex (1597-1601).