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HALF HOURS
ON THE QUARTER-DECK

THE HALF HOUR LIBRARY.
TRAVEL, NATURE, AND SCIENCE.
Handsomely bound, very fully Illustrated, 2s. 6d. each;
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Half Hours in the Holy Land.

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Over Mountains, Rivers, and Prairies.

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The People and Scenery of the Tropics.

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Among the People and Wonders of India.

Half Hours with a Naturalist.

Rambles near the Seashore.
By the Rev. J. G. Wood.

Half Hours in the Deep.

The Nature and Wealth of the Sea.

Half Hours in the Tiny World.

Wonders of Insect Life.

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Marvels of the Universe.

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Half Hours on the Quarter-Deck.

Half Hours in Early Naval Adventure.

Frontispiece.]

[[Page 41.]

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE CALLS ON HIS COMRADES TO “PLAY OUT THE MATCH, FOR THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME TO DO SO, AND TO BEAT THE SPANIARDS TOO.”

THE HALF HOUR LIBRARY
OF TRAVEL, NATURE, AND SCIENCE
FOR YOUNG READERS

HALF HOURS ON
THE QUARTER-DECK

The Spanish Armada to Sir Cloudesley Shovel
1670

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

London
JAMES NISBET & CO. LIMITED
21 Berners Street, W.
1899

INTRODUCTION.

This is the second of a series of books on a subject of the greatest interest to all young Englishmen—the Naval History of England. To the sea England owes its greatness, and the Anglo-Saxon race its possession of such large portions of the earth. Two-thirds of the surface of our globe are covered with water, and the nations that have the chief command of the seas must naturally have immense power in the world. There is nothing more marvellous in the last century, great as has been the progress in all directions, than the birth of new nations in distant parts of the earth, sprung from our own people, and speaking our own language. England and America bid fair to encompass the world with their influence; because, centuries ago, England became, through the bravery and endurance of her sailors, the chief ocean power.

From the earliest times, the command of the sea was eagerly sought after. The Phœnicians, occupying a position of much importance as a commercial centre between the great regions of Asia on the east and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean on the west, made rapid progress in navigation. The large ships they sent to Tarshish were unequalled for size and speed. Their vessels effected wonderful things in bringing together the varied treasures of distant countries. They used the sea rather for commerce, and the sending forth of colonists through whom they might extend their trade, than for purposes of conquest. With the Romans, who succeeded them in the command of the sea, especially after the fall of Carthage, the sea was a war-path, and the subjugation of the world was the paramount idea, although the vessels brought treasures from all parts to enrich the imperial city. The Anglo-Saxons have used the seas, both east and west, as the Phœnicians used the Mediterranean, for the extension of commerce and the planting of colonies, but also, as the Romans, for the subjugation and civilisation of great empires.

There is a great interest in observing the progress of events for a century after the opening up of the great world by Columbus and others of the same period. It seemed for a time as if Spain and Portugal were to conquer and possess most of the magnificent territories discovered; France seemed also likely to have a fair portion; but England, almost nowhere at first, gradually led the way. This was due chiefly to the wonderful feats and endurance and bravery of her sailors. One country after another fell under our influence, till the great continent of America in all its northern parts became peopled by the Anglo-Saxon race—which has, in later periods, similarly spread over Australia and New Zealand.

With the growth of the maritime power of England is associated a splendid array of heroic names, and many of the humblest sailors were equal in bravery to their renowned commanders. No history is more intensely interesting than that of the daring perils and triumphs of heroic seamen. The heroes, who have distinguished themselves in the history and growth of the British Navy, furnish a gallery and galaxy, bewildering in extent; the events of pith and moment, in which they have been prominent actors, present fields too vast to be fully traversed; they can only be touched at salient points.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

HALF HOURS ON THE
QUARTER-DECK.

WILLIAM, JOHN, AND RICHARD HAWKINS.
CHAPTER I.
THREE GENERATIONS OF ADVENTURERS.

The proclivities of parents are not uniformly manifested in their children, and the rule of “Like father, like son” has its exceptions. The three generations of the Hawkins’ family, who distinguished themselves as maritime adventurers in the reign of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, while differing in character, disposition, and attainments at divers points, were in common governed by a ruling passion—love of the sea, and choice of it as a road to fame and fortune.

William Hawkins, Esq., of Tavistock, was a man of much property, acquired by inheritance, but chiefly by his good fortune as a successful naval adventurer. He was regarded with great favour by King Henry VIII. About the year 1530 he fitted up a ship of 250 tons burthen, which he named the Paul of Plymouth, and in which he made three voyages to Brazil, touching also at the coast of Guinea to buy or capture human beings,—to make merchandise of them. He was probably the first English adventurer that engaged in this horrible traffic. Old chroniclers coolly record the fact that he traded successfully and most profitably in “slaves, gold, and elephants’ teeth.” Brazil was in those days under a quite different government to that of the enlightened ex-Emperor Dom Pedro, or of the Republic that has recently succeeded him. Its rulers were savage Indian chiefs, with whom Hawkins was signally successful in ingratiating himself. On the occasion of his second visit to the country, so complete was the confidence reposed in him by these native princes, that one of them consented to return with him to England, Hawkins leaving Martin Cockram of Plymouth, one of his crew, as a hostage for the safe return of the prince. The personal adornments of this aboriginal grandee were of a remarkable character. According to Hakluyt’s account, “In his cheeks were holes, made according to the savage manner, and therein small bones were planted, standing an inch out from the surface, which in his country was looked on as evidence of great bravery. He had another hole in his lower lip, wherein was set a precious stone about the bigness of a pea. All his apparel, behaviour, and gestures were very strange to the beholders,” as may easily be believed. After remaining in England for about a year, during which time the distinguished foreigner was a repeated visitor at the court of Henry VIII., who was a warm patron of Hawkins, the adventurer embarked to return to Brazil. Unhappily, the Indian prince died on the passage, which naturally occasioned serious apprehensions in Hawkins’ mind. He was sorry for the death of his fellow-voyager, but more concerned on account of poor Cockram, the hostage, whose life, he feared, was imperilled by the death of the savage, for whose safe return he had been left as security. The confiding barbarians, however, disappointed his fears; they accepted, without doubt or hesitation, his account of the circumstances of the chief’s death, and his assurance that all that was possible to skill and care had been done to save his life. The friendly intercourse between Hawkins and the natives continued; they traded freely upon mutually satisfactory terms, and Hawkins returned to England freighted with a valuable cargo. He was greatly enriched by his successive voyages to the West Indies and Brazil, and at a mature age retired from active life, in the enjoyment of the fortune he had amassed by his skill and courage as a seaman, his wisdom and astuteness as a merchant, his enterprise, fortitude, perseverance, and other qualities and characteristics that distinguish most men who get on in the world.

SIR JOHN HAWKINS.

John Hawkins, the second son of William Hawkins of Plymouth above referred to, was born at Plymouth about the year 1520. His elementary education was followed up in his early youth by assiduous study of mathematics and navigation. Early in life he made voyages to Spain and Portugal, and to the Canary Islands—the latter being considered a rather formidable undertaking in those days. In his early life he so diligently applied himself to his duties, and acquitted himself so successfully in their discharge, as to achieve a good reputation, and soon after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, an appointment in her navy, as an officer of consideration. It is stated concerning him, that as a young man he had engaging manners, and that at the Canaries, to which he had made several trips, “he had, by his tenderness and humanity, made himself very much beloved,” and had acquired a knowledge of the slave trade, and of the mighty profits which even in those days resulted from the sale of negroes in the West Indies. These glowing accounts of a quick road to riches fired the ambition of the tender and humane adventurer.

In 1562, when he had acquired much experience as a seaman, and was at the best of his manhood’s years, he projected a great slave-trading expedition. His design was to obtain subscriptions from the most eminent London traders and other wealthy persons, to provide and equip an adventure squadron. He proposed to proceed first to Guinea for a cargo of slaves, to be procured by barter, purchase, capture, or in any other way,—and the cheaper the better. With his freight of slaves, his design was to proceed to Hispaniola, Porto Rico, and other Spanish islands, and there to sell the slaves for money, or barter them in exchange for sugar, hides, silver, and other produce. He readily obtained, as his partners in this unscrupulous project, Sir William Lodge, Sir William Winter, Mr. Bromson, and his (Hawkins’) father-in-law, Mr. Gunson. The squadron consisted of the Solomon, of 120 tons, Hawkins, commander; the Swallow, of 100 tons, captain, Thomas Hampton; and the Jonas, a bark of 40 tons. The three vessels carried in all one hundred men. The squadron sailed in October 1562, and touched first at Teneriffe, from which they proceeded on to Guinea, where landing, “by money, and where that failed, by the sword,” Hawkins acquired three hundred negroes to be sold as slaves. These he disposed of at enormous profits at Hispaniola and others of the Spanish settlements, and returned to England,—to the enrichment, as the result of his “famous voyage,” of himself and his unscrupulous co-proprietors.

“Nothing succeeds like success.” There was now no difficulty in obtaining abundant support, in money and men, for further adventure, on the same lines. Slave-trading was proved to be a paying pursuit, and then as now, those who hasted to be rich were not fastidious, as to the moral aspect and nature of the quickest method. Another expedition was determined upon, and on a larger scale. Hawkins, the successful conductor of the expedition, was highly popular. As eminent engineers have taken in gentlemen apprentices in more modern times, Captain Hawkins was beset with applications to take in gentlemen apprentices to the art and mystery of slave-trade buccaneering. Among the youngsters entrusted to his tutelage were several who afterwards achieved distinction in the Royal Navy, including Mr. John Chester, son of Sir Wm. Chester, afterwards a captain in the navy; Anthony Parkhurst, who became a leading man in Bristol, and turned out an enterprising adventurer; John Sparkes, an able writer on maritime enterprises, who gave a graphic account of Hawkins’ second expedition, which Sparkes had accompanied as an apprentice.

The squadron in the second expedition comprised the Jesus of Lubeck, of 700 tons, a queen’s ship, Hawkins, commander; the Solomon; and two barques, the Tiger and the Swallow. The expedition sailed from Plymouth on the 18th October 1564. The first endeavour of the adventurers was to reach the coast of Guinea, for the nefarious purpose of man-stealing, as before. An incident, that occurred on the day after the squadron left Teneriffe, reflects credit on Hawkins in showing his paternal care for the lives of his crew, although he held the lives of Guinea negroes of little account, and in exhibiting also his skill as a seaman. The pinnace of his own ship, with two men in it, was capsized, and the upturned boat, with the two men struggling in the water, was dropped out of sight, before sail could be taken in. Hawkins ordered the jolly-boat to be let down and manned by twenty-four able-bodied seamen, to whose leading man he gave steering directions. After a long and stiff pull, the pinnace, with the two men riding astride on the keel, was sighted, and their rescue effected.

The poor hunted savages sometimes sold their lives and liberties dearly to their Christian captors. In one of his raids upon the coast of Africa in this expedition, the taking of ten negroes cost Hawkins six of his best men killed, and twenty-seven wounded. The Rev. Mr. Hakluyt—affected with obliquity of moral vision it may be—deliberately observes concerning Captain Hawkins and this disaster, that “his countenance remained unclouded, and though he was naturally a man of compassion, he made very light of his loss, that others might not take it to heart.” A very large profit was realised by this expedition, “a full cargo of very rich commodities” having been collected in the trading with Jamaica, Cuba, and other West Indian islands. On the return voyage another incident occurred illustrative of Captain Hawkins’ punctilious regard to honesty in other directions than that of negroes—having property rights in their own lives and liberties. When off Newfoundland, which seemed to be rather round circle sailing on their way home, the commander fell in with two French fishing vessels. Hawkins’ squadron had run very short of provisions. They boarded the Frenchmen, and, without leave asked or obtained, helped themselves to as much of their stock of provisions, as they thought would serve for the remainder of the voyage home. To the amazement as much as the satisfaction of the Frenchmen, Hawkins paid honourably for the salt junk and biscuits thus appropriated.

The squadron arrived at Padstow, Cornwall, on the 20th September 1565. The idea of the brotherhood of man had not in that age been formulated, and Hawkins was honoured for his achievements, in establishing a new and lucrative branch of trade. Heraldic honours were conferred upon him by Clarencieux, king at arms, who granted him, as an appropriate crest, “a demi-moor bound with a cord or chain.”

ROCHELLE.

In 1567 Hawkins sailed in charge of an expedition for the relief of the French Protestants at Rochelle. This object was satisfactorily effected, and he proceeded to prepare for a third voyage to the West Indies. Before this expedition sailed, Hawkins, while off Cativater waiting the queen’s orders, had an opportunity, of which he made prompt and spirited use, for vindicating the honours of the queen’s flag. A Spanish fleet of fifty sail, bound for Flanders, passed comparatively near to the coast, and in sight of Hawkins’ squadron, without saluting by lowering their top-sails, and taking in their flags. Hawkins ordered a shot to be fired across the bows of the leading ship. No notice was taken of this, whereupon he ordered another to be fired, that would make its mark. The second shot went through the hull of the admiral, whereupon the Spaniards struck sail and came to an anchor. The Spanish general sent a messenger to demand the meaning of this hostile demonstration. Hawkins would not accept the message, or even permit the messenger to come on board. On the Spanish general sending again, Hawkins sent him the explanation that he had not paid the reverence due to the queen, that his coming in force without doing so was suspicious; and he concluded his reply by ordering the Spanish general to sheer off, or he would be treated as an enemy. On coming together, and further parley, Hawkins and the Spaniard arrived at an amicable understanding, and concluded their conferences in reconciliation feasts and convivialities, on board and on shore.

The new expedition sailed on the 2nd October 1567. The squadron consisted of the Jesus of Lubeck, the Minion, and four other ships. As before, the adventurers made first for Guinea, the favourite gathering-ground for the inhuman traffic, and collected there a crowd of five hundred negroes, the hapless victims of their cupidity. The greater number of these they disposed of at splendid prices, in money or produce, in Spanish America. Touching at Rio Del Hacha, to Hawkins’ indignant surprise, the governor, believing it to be within his right, refused to trade with him. Such arrogance was not to be submitted to, and Hawkins landed a storming party, who assaulted and took the town, which, if it did not exactly make things pleasant, compelled submission, and, for the invading adventurers, a profitable trade. Having made the most he could of Hacha, Hawkins next proceeded to Carthagena, where he disposed, at good prices, of the remainder of the five hundred slaves.

The adventurers were now (September 1568) in good condition for returning home with riches, leaving honours out of consideration, but the time had passed for their having their own will and way. Plain sailing in smooth seas was over with them; storm and trouble, and struggle for dear life, awaited them. Shortly after leaving Carthagena the squadron was overtaken by violent storms, and for refuge they made, as well as they could, for St. John de Ulloa, in the Gulf of Mexico. While in the harbour, the Spanish fleet came up in force, and was about to enter. Hawkins was in an awkward position. He liked not the Spaniards, and would fain have given their vastly superior force a wide berth. He tried what diplomacy would do. He sent a message to the viceroy that the English were there only for provisions, for which they would pay, and he asked the good offices of the viceroy, for the preservation of an honourable peace. The terms proposed by Hawkins were assented to, and hostages for the observance of the conditions were exchanged. But he was dealing with deceivers. On Thursday, September 23rd, he noticed great activity in the carrying of ammunition to the Spanish ships, and that a great many men were joining the ships from the shore. He sent to the viceroy demanding the meaning of all this, and had fair promises sent back in return. Again Hawkins sent Robert Barret, master of the Jesus, who knew the Spanish language, to demand whether it was not true that a large number of men were concealed in a 900-ton ship that lay next to the Minion, and why it was that the guns of the Spanish fleet were all pointed at the English ships. The viceroy answered this demand by ordering Barret into irons, and directing the trumpet to sound a charge. At this time Hawkins was at dinner in his cabin with a treacherous guest, Don Augustine de Villa Nueva, who had accepted the rôle of Hawkins’ assassin. John Chamberlain, of Hawkins’ bodyguard, detected the dagger up the traitor’s sleeve, denounced him, and had him cared for. Going on deck, Hawkins found the English attacked on all sides; an overpowering crowd of enemies from the great Spanish ship alongside was pouring into the Minion. With a loud voice he shouted, “God and St. George! Fall upon those traitors, and rescue the Minion!” His men eagerly answered the call, leaped out of the Jesus into the Minion, and made short work with the enemy, slaughtering them wholesale, and driving out the remnant. Having cleared the Minion of the enemy, they did equally effective service with the ship’s guns; they sent a shot into the Spanish vice-admiral’s ship that, probably from piercing the powder-room, blew up the ship and three hundred men with it. On the other hand, all the Englishmen who happened to be on shore were cut off, except three who escaped by swimming from shore to their ships. The English were overmatched to an enormous extent, by the fleet and the attack from the shore. The Spaniards took the Swallow, and burnt the Angel. The Jesus had the fore-mast cut down by a shot, and the main-mast shattered. The Spaniards set fire to two of their own ships, with which they bore down upon the Jesus, with the desire of setting it on fire. In dire extremity, and to avert the calamity of having their ship burnt, the crew, without orders, cut the cables and put to sea; they returned, however, to take Hawkins on board. The English ships suffered greatly by the shots from the shore, as well as from the fleet, but inflicted, considering the disparity in strength of the combatants, much greater damage than they sustained. The ships of the Spanish admiral and vice-admiral were both disabled,—the latter destroyed; four other Spanish ships were sunk or burnt. Of the Spanish fighting men,—fifteen hundred in number at the commencement of the battle,—five hundred and forty, or more than a third, were killed or wounded. The Jesus and the Minion fought themselves clear of the Spaniards, but the former was so much damaged as to be unmanageable, and the Minion, with Hawkins and most of his men on board, and the Judith, of 50 tons, were the only ships that escaped. The sanguinary action lasted from noon until evening. The wreckage to such an extent of Hawkins’ fleet involved, of course, a heavy deduction from his fortune.

After leaving St. John de Ulloa, the adventurers suffered great privations. Their design to replenish their failing stock of provisions had been frustrated, and Hawkins was now threatened with mutiny among the crew, because of the famine that seemed imminent, and which he was powerless to avert. They entered a creek in the Bay of Mexico, at the mouth of the river Tampico. A number of the men demanded to be left on shore, declaring that they would rather be on shore to eat dogs and cats, parrots, rats, and monkeys, than remain on board to starve to death. “Four score and sixteen” men thus elected to be left on shore. Job Hortop, one of the crew, who left a narrative of the voyage, states that Hawkins counselled the men he was leaving to “serve God and love one another, and courteously bade them a sorrowful farewell.” On the return voyage, Hawkins and the remnant with him, sustained great hardships and privations. At Vigo, where he touched, he met with some English ships, from which he was able to obtain, by arrangement, twelve stout seamen, to assist his reduced and enfeebled crew, in the working of his ships for the remainder of the homeward voyage. He sailed from Vigo on the 20th January 1569, and reached Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, on the 25th of the same month. Thus ended his third eventful and disastrous expedition to El Dorado.

The poor fellows, left on shore in Mexico, entered upon a terrible campaign of danger and suffering. The first party of Indians that the castaways fell in with, slaughtered a number of them, but on discovering that they were not Spaniards, whom the Indians hated inveterately, spared the remainder, and directed them to the port of Tampico. It is recorded of two of their number, Richard Brown and Richard Twide, that they performed the wonderful feat, under such cruel disadvantages and difficulties, of marching across the North American continent from Mexico to Nova Scotia,—from which they were brought home in a French ship. Others of the wanderers fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who sent some of them prisoners to Mexico, and others to Spain, where, by sentence of the Holy Inquisition, some were burnt to death, and others consigned for long terms to imprisonment. Miles Philips, one of the crew, reached England, after many perilous adventures and hair-breadth ’scapes, in 1582. Job Hortop and John Bone were sentenced to imprisonment for ten years. Hortop, after twenty-three years’ absence from England, spent in Hawkins’ fleet, and in wanderings, imprisonment, and divers perils, reached home in 1590, and wrote an interesting account of the voyage, and of his personal adventures.

SIR JOHN HAWKINS PURSUING THE SHIPS OF THE ARMADA.

In his last expedition Hawkins had returned with impaired fortune, but without dishonour. He had, indeed, added to the lustre of England, and to his personal renown, by the skill and valour he had displayed in the affair of St. John de Ulloa,—in which the glory was his, and infamy attached to the treacherous Spaniards, whose immense superiority in strength should have enabled them to extinguish their enemy, instead of being beaten by him. In recognition of his valour, Hawkins was granted by Clarencieux, king at arms, further heraldic honours, in an augmentation of his arms; he was also appointed Treasurer to the Navy, an office of great honour and profit.

Hawkins’ next great public service was rendered, as commander of Her Majesty’s ship Victory, in the actions against the Spanish Armada in 1588. The commanders of the English squadrons in the Armada actions and pursuit were the Lord High Admiral, and Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins, rear-admiral. Sir John was knighted by the Lord High Admiral for his distinguished services; as was also Sir Martin Frobisher. Sir John Hawkins shared largely in the dangers and honours of the actions, and, in the pursuit of the Spaniards, he rendered extraordinarily active and successful service, for which he was particularly commended by Queen Elizabeth.

In 1590 Sir John Hawkins, in conjunction with Sir Martin Frobisher,—each with a squadron of fifty ships,—was sent to harass the Spanish coast, and to intercept and capture, if possible, the Plate fleet. Suspecting this intention, the Spanish king contrived to convey intelligence to India, ordering the fleet to winter there, instead of coming home. Hawkins and Frobisher cruised about for six or seven months, with no more definite result than humiliating Spain, and detracting from its dignity and influence as a naval power.

Sir John Hawkins was next appointed in a joint expedition against Spain with Sir Francis Drake. The design of the expedition, which sailed from Plymouth on the 28th August 1595, was to burn Nombre-de-Dios, and to march thence overland to Panama, and appropriate there the Spanish treasure from Peru. The design proved abortive, partly from tempestuous weather, but partly also from disagreement between the commanders. On the 30th October, at a short distance from Dominica, the Francis, a bark of 35 tons, the sternmost of Sir John Hawkins’ fleet,—and a long way in the rear of the others,—was fallen in with by a squadron of five Spanish frigates, and captured. This misfortune, in conjunction with other depressing circumstances, and the hopelessness of the enterprise, so much affected Sir John Hawkins as to cause his death on the 21st November 1595—of a broken heart, it was believed.

The expeditions of Sir John Hawkins to the West Indies, his services in connection with the Spanish Armada, his joint expeditions with Frobisher and Drake, fall far short of filling up the story of his life, or the measure of his usefulness as a public man. Of his home life they tell nothing.

Sir John was twice married, and was three times elected a member of Parliament, twice for Plymouth. He was a wise, liberal, and powerful friend and supporter of the British Navy. He munificently provided, at Chatham, an hospital for poor and distressed sailors. The “Chest” at Chatham was instituted by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake,—being a provident fund, formed from voluntary deductions from sailors’ pay, applied to the relief of disabled and indigent comrades. Sir John Hawkins was the author and promoter of many beneficial rules and regulations for the government of the navy. He was an accomplished mathematician, a skilful navigator, a courageous combatant; as Treasurer of the Navy he proved an able administrator; and to these qualities he added the enterprising spirit of a merchant prince,—he and his brother William being joint owners at one time of a fleet of thirty good stout ships. It was said of him by a contemporary that he had been graceful in youth, and that he was grave and reverend in advanced life. He was a man of great sagacity, unflinching courage, sound judgment, and cool presence of mind, submissive to authority, courteous to his peers, affable and amiable to his men, by whom he was much beloved. His active life embraced a period of forty-eight years, during which he, for longer or shorter periods, acted as a commander at sea, including twenty-two years, during which he held the office of Treasurer of the Navy.

Richard Hawkins, of the third generation of eminent navigators, and son of Sir John Hawkins, was born at Plymouth about the year 1570. He had a strong predilection for naval service, and when only a lad in his teens had the command of a vessel, and was vice-admiral of a small squadron commanded by his uncle, William Hawkins, Esq., of Plymouth, that was employed in a “private expedition” to the West Indies—really to “pick and steal” what they could from the Spaniards. He had an early opportunity of showing his courage and confidence in his own powers. The captain of one of the ships of the fleet, the Bonner, complained that his ship was not seaworthy, and recommended that his crew and himself should be shifted into a better ship, and that the Bonner should be sunk. Young Hawkins protested against the sacrifice of the ship, and offered, if a good crew were allowed him, to carry the Bonner through the cruise, and then home. His success would, of course, have disgraced the captain, who withdrew his recommendation, and remained in his ship,—which justified young Hawkins’ protest by continuing seaworthy for many years.

CHATHAM, 17TH CENTURY.

In 1588 young Hawkins was captain of the queen’s ship Swallow, which suffered most of any in the actions with the Spanish Armada. A fire arrow that had been hid in a sail, burnt a hole in the beak-head of the Swallow. Richard afterwards wrote an able account of the actions, with a judicious criticism and defence of the strategy of the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral,—in not laying the Spaniards aboard. This Hawkins held would have been a dangerous course, from the greater height of the Spanish ships, and from their having an army on board. By keeping clear, the English ships could also take advantage of wind and tide for manœuvring round the enemy. He held that, by lying alongside of the Spaniards they would have risked defeat, and that the free movement and fighting gave them a better chance of humiliating the enemy.

In 1590 Richard Hawkins commanded the Crane, of 200 tons, in the expedition of his father and Sir Martin Frobisher against Spain. The commander of the Crane did excellent service in the pursuit of the Spanish squadron employed in carrying relief to the forces in Brittany; and afterwards he so harassed the Spaniards at the Azores, as to incite the merchants there to curse the Spanish ministers who had brought about (or permitted) a war with such a powerful enemy as England.

On returning from this expedition, Hawkins commenced preparations for a bold buccaneering project against Spain. He built a ship of 350 tons, to which his mother-in-law—who had assisted with funds—obstinately persisted in giving the ominous name of the Repentance. Richard Hawkins could not stand this name, and sold the ship to his father. The Repentance, in spite of the name, did excellent service, and had very good fortune. On return from an expedition, while lying at Deptford, the Repentance was surveyed by the queen, who rowed round the ship in her barge, and graciously—acting probably upon a hint from Sir John or his son Richard—re-named it the Dainty, whereupon Richard bought back the ship from his father for service in his projected great expedition. His plan included, in addition to plundering the Spaniards, visits to Japan, the Moluccas, the Philippines, passage through the Straits of Magellan, and return by the Cape of Good Hope. His ambitious prospectus secured the admiration and approval of the greatest men of the time, including the lord high admiral, Sir R. Cecil, Sir Walter Raleigh, etc. On the 8th of April 1593, the Dainty dropped down the river to Gravesend, and on the 26th arrived at Plymouth, where severe misfortune overtook the little squadron, consisting of the Dainty, the Hawk, and the Fancy,—all of them the property of Richard Hawkins, or of the Hawkins family. A tempest arose in which the Dainty sprang her main-mast, and the Fancy was driven ashore and knocked to pieces before the owner’s eyes. This misfortune magnified the fears, and intensified the tender entreaties, of his young wife that he would abandon the perilous enterprise,—but he was not to be dissuaded. He said that there were “so many eyes upon the ball, that he felt bound to dance on, even though he might only be able to hop at last.”

On the 12th June 1593, Hawkins left Plymouth Sound, with his tiny squadron of the Dainty and tender. Before the end of the month he arrived at Madeira, and on the 3rd July passed the Canaries, and shortly after the Cape de Verd Islands, all well, and without anything notable occurring to the squadron. Later, however, when nearing the coast of Brazil, scurvy of a malignant type broke out among the crew. Hawkins gave close attention to the men stricken, personally superintended their treatment, and made notes,—from which he afterwards wrote an elaborate paper on the disease, its causes, nature, and cure. At a short distance south of the Equator he put in to a Brazilian port for provisions. He sent a courteous letter, written in Latin, to the governor, stating that he was in command of an English ship, that he had met with contrary winds, and desired provisions, for which he would gladly pay. The governor replied that their monarchs were at war, and he could not supply his wants, but he politely gave him three days to do his best and depart. The three days’ grace were promptly taken advantage of to lay in a supply of oranges and other fruit, when he again sailed southward. On the 20th November he arrived at the Island of St. Ann, 20° 30’ south latitude, where—the provisions and stores having been taken out of the Hawk—that vessel was burned. He touched at other parts of the coast for provisions and water. Hawkins had a difficult part to play in dealing with his crew, who were impatient for plunder. Robert Tharlton, who commanded the Fairy, and who had proved a traitor to Captain Thomas Cavendish, in the La Plata, drew off a number of the men, with whom he deserted before they reached the Straits of Magellan. Notwithstanding the discouragement of Tharlton’s treachery and desertion, Hawkins courageously proceeded with his hazardous enterprise. Sailing along the coast of Patagonia, he gave names to several places, amongst others to Hawkins’ Maiden Land,—because discovered by himself in the reign of a maiden queen.

In the course of his voyage southward, he made a prize of a Portuguese ship. He found it to be the property of an old knight who was on board, on his way to Angola, as governor. The old gentleman made a piteous appeal to Hawkins, pleading that he had invested his all in the ship and its cargo, and that the loss of it would be his utter ruin. His petition was successful, and Hawkins let him go. On the 10th February he reached the Straits of Magellan, and, passing through, emerged into the South Pacific Ocean on the 29th March 1594. This was the sixth passage of the straits—the third by an Englishman. He wrote an excellent account of the passage through the straits, which he pronounced navigable during the whole year, but the most favourable—or, it should rather perhaps be put, the least unfavourable—seasons for the at best unpleasant voyage were the months of November, December, and January. On the 19th April he anchored for a short time under the Isle of Mocha. Resuming his voyage along the coast of Chili, he encountered, in the so-called Pacific Ocean, a violent storm, that lasted without intermission for ten days. His men were becoming desperately impatient, and they insisted that they should attempt to take everything floating that they sighted. Every vessel in those waters, they believed, had gold or silver in them. At Valparaiso they took four ships, much against Hawkins’ wish. He exercised discrimination, and wished to reserve their strength, and prevent alarm on shore, by waiting till a prize worth taking came in their way. They got from the prizes an abundant supply of provisions, but very little gold, and only trifling ransoms for the prisoners. The small amount taken added greatly to Hawkins’ difficulties and embarrassments. His bold buccaneers demanded that the third part of the treasure should, according to contract, be given up to them,—then and there. He resisted the demand, urged that they could not expend anything profitably here and now, and that they would only gamble with their shares, which would probably lead to quarrels and the ruin of the expedition. It was at last agreed that the treasure should be placed in a chest with three locks,—one key to be held by Hawkins, one by the master, and the third by a representative appointed by the men.

MOUNTAINS AND GLACIERS, STRAITS OF MAGELLAN.

Arriving at Ariquipa, Hawkins ascertained by some means that Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, Viceroy of Peru, had received intelligence of his being off the coast, and had sent out a squadron of six vessels to capture him. Hawkins had in the Dainty, and in a little Indian vessel he had taken, and which he had fitted up as a pinnace, a combined crew of seventy-five men and boys—a lamentably small force to resist a well-manned squadron of six men-of-war ships. About the middle of May the Spanish squadron was sighted near Civite. Hawkins, who was to windward, stood out to sea. The Spanish ships, under the command of Don Bertrand de Castro, followed. The wind freshened greatly; the Spanish admiral lost his main-mast, the vice-admiral split his main-sail, and the rear-admiral’s main-yard tumbled down. The Spaniards were thrown into utter confusion, and Hawkins escaped. On returning to port with his damaged ships, and without the diminutive enemy he had gone out to capture, De Castro and the other commanders were received with humiliating and exasperating derision. De Castro’s earnest petition to be allowed to go to sea again was granted, and he sailed with two ships and a pinnace,—all fully manned with picked men. On the 20th June the Spanish squadron came in sight. Hawkins’ ungovernable crew would have him chase everything they sighted; they would have it that the armed cruisers were the Peruvian plate fleet, laden with the treasure for which they had come, and for which they had so long toiled and waited. They were soon undeceived by the Spanish attack, which they met with dogged bravery. The Spanish ships were manned by about thirteen hundred of the best men in the service,—and it seems marvellous that Hawkins and his bull-dogs could have stood out so long. The fight lasted for two whole days and part of a third. Hawkins had received six wounds, two of them dangerous, and was at last completely disabled. Besides the killed, there were forty of his men wounded, and his ship was sinking. On the afternoon of 22nd June, this was his deplorable plight:—the whole of his sails were rent, the masts shattered, eight feet of water in the hold, and the pumps rent and useless; scarcely a single unwounded man was left in the ship, and all were so fatigued that they could not stand. Helpless as was their plight, and desperate their condition, Hawkins was able to obtain honourable conditions of surrender, namely, that himself and all on board should have a free passage to England, as soon as possible. De Castro swore by his knighthood that the conditions would be faithfully observed, in token of which he sent his glove to Hawkins, and took possession of the shattered Dainty, without inflicting the slightest humiliation on his brave fallen enemy, or permitting his crew to express triumph over them. On the 9th July, the Spanish squadron, with Hawkins on board De Castro’s ship, arrived at Panama, which was brilliantly illuminated in celebration of the “famous victory.” Despatches, to allay apprehensions concerning the terrible enemy, were sent off to the viceroys of New Spain and Peru. Hawkins was allowed to send letters home to his father and other friends, and to the queen. From Don Bertrand, Hawkins learned that the King of Spain had received from England full and minute particulars, concerning the strength and equipment of Hawkins’ little squadron before it sailed, showing that the King of Spain had spies in England. The Dainty prize was repaired and re-named the Visitation, because surrendered on the day of the feast of the blessed Virgin. Hawkins was long kept in captivity. He was for two years in Peru and adjacent provinces, and was then sent to Europe and kept a prisoner at Seville and Madrid. His release was claimed on the ground of Don Bertrand’s knightly pledge, but the reply was given that he had received his authority from the Viceroy of Peru, not from the King of Spain, upon whom his engagement was not binding. The Count de Miranda, President of the Council, however, at last gave judgment, that the promise of a Spanish general in the king’s name should be kept, and Hawkins was set at liberty, and returned to England.

During his captivity he wrote a detailed account of his voyage, entitled The Observations of Richard Hawkins, Knight, in his Voyage into the South Sea, 1593. It was published in London in 1622, the year in which Hawkins died of apoplexy,—at somewhere near fifty years of age.

Sir Richard Hawkins possessed powers that fitted him for great achievements. With resources at command, and a fitting field for their use, corresponding with his courage and ability, he would have distinguished himself by mighty deeds. His ill-fated voyage to the South Sea was like the light cavalry charge at Balaclava—it was magnificent, but it was not war!

CHARLES HOWARD,
BARON OF EFFINGHAM, AFTERWARDS EARL OF NOTTINGHAM.
CHAPTER II. “BORN TO SERVE AND SAVE HIS COUNTRY.”

Queen Elizabeth has been magniloquently designated the Restorer of England’s Naval Power and Sovereign of the Northern Seas. Under her sovereignty Lord Charles Howard wielded supreme authority worthily and well, on behalf of his country, during that naval demonstration, which may be regarded as the most important, in its design and results, of any that the world has known. Lord Charles was High Admiral of England during the period of the inception, the proud departure, the baleful course, and the doleful return to Spain, of the “most happy and invincible Armada,” or rather—what was left of it.

EARL OF EFFINGHAM.

Charles Howard, elder son of the Earl of Effingham, was born in the year 1536, in the reign of Henry VIII. Charles served under his father, who was Lord Admiral to Mary, in several expeditions. He did duty as an envoy to Charles IX. of France on his accession. He served as a general of horse in the army headed by Warwick, against the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, and, as a courtier, he rendered various other services, not calling for particular notice. In 1572 he succeeded his father, and in 1573 was made a Knight of the Garter. On the death of the Earl of Lincoln, in 1585, the queen appointed Lord Charles, High Admiral. This appointment gave great satisfaction to all ranks, and was especially gratifying to seamen,—with whom Lord Charles was highly popular.

Philip of Spain employed all the art he was possessed of to obtain ascendency over Elizabeth, as he had done over her infatuated sister Mary, and—irrespective of law, if any existed to the contrary—was more than willing to marry his “deceased wife’s sister,” but Elizabeth would neither marry, nor take orders from him, which exasperated Philip greatly. His religious fanaticism and the influence of the Jesuits made him determined to punish the queen and ruin her country. With this amiable intention the great Armada was prepared. It consisted of 130 ships, of an aggregate of about 60,000 tons. It was armed with 2630 pieces of cannon, and carried 30,000 men, including 124 volunteers,—the flower of the Spanish nobility and gentry,—and 180 monks. Twelve of the greatest ships were named after the twelve apostles.

The English fleet was put under the command of Lord Howard, with Sir Francis Drake for his vice-admiral, and Sir John Hawkins for his rear-admiral. Lord Henry Seymour, with Count Nassau, cruised on the coast of Flanders, to watch the movements of the Duke of Parma, who purposed, it was believed, to form a junction with the Spanish Armada, or to aid it, by making a separate descent upon England.

The threatened invasion stirred the kingdom to the highest pitch of patriotic fervour. The city of London advanced large sums of money for the national service. Requisitioned to provide 15 ships and 5000 men, the city fathers promptly provided 30 ships and 10,000 men.

The Armada encountered a violent storm, at almost the commencement of the voyage northwards, and had to put back. The rumour was current in England that the great expedition was hopelessly shattered. Lord Howard consequently received, through Walsingham, Secretary of State, instructions to send four of his largest ships into port. The admiral doubted the safety of this course, and willingly engaged to keep the ships out, at his own charge. He bore away towards Spain, and soon obtained such intelligence, as confirmed him in the opinion he had formed, and fully justified the course he had adopted.

On the 19th July, Fleming, a Scottish pirate, who plied his vocation in the Channel and the approaches thereto, sailed into Plymouth in hot haste, with the intelligence that the Armada was at hand. This pirate did, for once at least in his life, an honest and incalculably important day’s work. An ancient historian estimates it so highly as to say that “this man was, in reality, the cause of the absolute ruin of the Spaniards; for the preservation of the English was undoubtedly owing to his providential discovery of the enemy.” At the request of Lord Admiral Howard, the queen afterwards granted a pardon to Fleming for his past offences, and awarded him a pension for the timely service he had rendered to the nation.

“And then,” says Dr. Collier, “was played on the Hoe at Plymouth that game of bowls, which fixes itself like a picture on the memory,—the faint, hazy blue of the July sky, arching over sun-baked land and glittering sea; the group of captains on the grass, peak-bearded and befrilled, in the fashion of Elizabeth’s day; the gleaming wings of Fleming’s little bark skimming the green waters like a seagull, on her way to Plymouth harbour with the weightiest news. She touches the rude pier; the skipper makes hastily for the Hoe, and tells how that morning he saw the giant hulls off the Cornish coast, and how he has with difficulty escaped by the fleetness of his ship. The breathless silence changes to a storm of tongues; but the resolute man who loaded the Golden Hind with Spanish pesos, and ploughed the waves of every ocean round the globe, calls on his comrades to ‘play out the match, for there is plenty of time to do so, and to beat the Spaniards too.’ It is Drake who speaks. The game is resumed, and played to the last shot. Then begin preparations for a mightier game. The nation’s life is at stake. Out of Plymouth, along every road, men spur as for life, and every headland and mountain peak shoots up its red tongue of warning flame.”

The sorrows and sufferings of the crowd of Spaniards noble and ignoble, of the nine score holy fathers, and the two thousand galley slaves, who left the Tagus in glee and grandeur, in the “happy Armada,” with a great design,—but really to serve no higher purpose, as things turned out, than to provide, in their doomed persons, a series of banquets for the carnivorous fishes in British waters,—need not be dwelt upon here, being referred to elsewhere.

As commander-in-chief, it was universally felt and admitted that Lord Charles Howard acquitted himself with sound judgment, consummate skill, and unfaltering courage. The queen acknowledged his merits, the indebtedness of the nation to the lord high admiral, and her sense of his magnanimity and prudence, in the most expressive terms. In 1596 he was advanced to the title and dignity of Earl of Nottingham, his patent of nobility containing the declaration, “that by the victory obtained anno 1588, he did secure the kingdom of England from the invasion of Spain, and other impending dangers; and did also, in conjunction with our dear cousin, Robert, Earl of Essex, seize by force the Isle and the strongly fortified castle of Cadiz, in the farthest part of Spain; and did likewise rout and entirely defeat another fleet of the King of Spain, prepared in that port against this kingdom.” On entering the House of Peers, the Earl of Nottingham was received with extraordinary expressions and demonstrations of honourable regard.

LORD HOWARD’S DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH FLEET NEAR CADIZ.

In 1599, circumstances of delicacy and difficulty again called for the services of the Earl of Nottingham. Spain meditated another invasion. The Earl of Essex in Ireland had entangled affairs, had left his post there, and had rebelliously fortified himself in his house in London. The Earl of Nottingham succeeded in bringing the contumacious earl to a state of quietude, if not of reason, and had the encomium pronounced upon him by the queen, that he seemed to have been born “to serve and to save his country.” He was invested with the unusual and almost unlimited authority of Lord Lieutenant General of all England; he was also appointed one of the commissioners for executing the office of Earl-Marshal. On her death-bed the queen made known to the earl her desire as to the succession,—an unequivocal proof of her regard and confidence,—the disclosure having been entreated in vain by her most favoured ministers.

The accession of James did not impede the fortunes of the Earl of Nottingham; he was appointed Lord High Steward, to assist at the coronation; and afterwards commissioned to the most brilliant embassy—to the court of Philip III. of Spain—that the country had ever sent forth. During his stay at the Spanish court, the dignified splendour that characterised the Embassy commanded the admiration and respect of the court and people; and at his departure, Philip made him presents of the estimated value of about £20,000,—thereby exciting the jealousy and displeasure of the far from magnanimous James I. Popularity and influence, enjoyed or exercised independently of himself, were distasteful and offensive to his ungenerous nature. James frequently reminded his nobles at court “that they were there, as little vessels sailing round the master ship; whereas they were in the country so many great ships each riding majestically on its own stream.”

The earl had his enemies, but he regained the confidence of the king, and in 1613 assisted at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with Frederick, the Elector Palatine. His last naval service was to command the squadron that escorted the princess to Flushing. The infirmities of age having disqualified him for discharging the onerous duties of the office, he resigned his post of lord high admiral, after a lengthened term of honourable and effective service. The distinguished career of this eminent public man came to a calm and honourable close on the nth December 1624—the earl having reached the advanced age of eighty-eight years.

SIR MARTIN FROBISHER,
NAVIGATOR, DISCOVERER, AND COMBATANT.
CHAPTER III. THE FIRST ENGLISH DISCOVERER OF GREENLAND.

Martin Frobisher had no “lineage” to boast of; he was of the people. His parents, who had respectable connections, are supposed to have come from North Wales to the neighbourhood of Normanton, Yorkshire, where he was born about the year 1535. Frobisher seems to have taken to the sea from natural inclination. He is said to have been bred to the sea, but had reached the prime of life—about forty years of age—before he came into public notice as a mariner. He must have been a man of mark, and possessed of qualities that commanded confidence. His mother had a brother in London, Sir John York, to whom young Frobisher was sent, and by whom he was probably assisted.

In 1554 he sailed to Guinea in a small squadron of merchant ships under the command of Captain John Lock, and in 1561 had worked his way up to the command of a ship. In 1571 he was employed in superintending the building of a ship at Plymouth, that was intended to be employed against Ireland. For years he had been scheming, planning, and striving to obtain means for an expedition in search of a North-West passage from England to “far Cathay.” He was at last so far successful as to get together an amusingly small squadron for such a daring project. He was placed in command of the Gabriel and the Michael, two small barques of 20 tons each, and a pinnace of 10 tons, with crews of thirty-five men all told, wherewith to encounter the unknown perils of the Arctic seas. Captain Matthew Kindersley was associated with him in the adventure. The expedition sailed from Gravesend on the 7th June 1576, and proceeded northwards by way of the Shetland Islands. The pinnace was lost on the voyage, and the other vessels narrowly escaped wreck in the violent weather encountered off the coast of Greenland, of which Frobisher was the first English discoverer. He reached Labrador 28th July, and effected a landing on Hall’s Island, at the mouth of the bay that bears Frobisher’s name. At Butcher’s Island, where he afterwards landed, five of the crew were captured by the natives, and were never again seen. The adventurers took on board samples of earth,—with bright specks supposed to be gold. Compared with subsequent Arctic expeditions, this was a small affair in length of voyage and time occupied,—the mariners reaching home on the 9th October.

SIR MARTIN FROBISHER.

Practical mineralogy was in its infancy in those days, and the supposed auriferous earth excited great expectations, but no attempt seems to have been made to find out whether it was or was not what it seemed. Pending analysis, the expedition was considered so far satisfactory and successful, and a Cathay Company was straightway formed under a charter from the Crown. Another expedition was determined upon; the queen lent a ship of 200 tons, and subscribed £1000; Frobisher was appointed High Admiral of all lands and seas he might discover, and was empowered to sail in every direction except east. The squadron consisted of the queen’s ship, the Aid, the Gabriel, and the Michael of last year’s voyage, with pinnaces and boats, and a crew of one hundred and twenty men. The squadron sailed 28th May 1577, and arrived off Greenland in July. More of the supposed precious earth was shipped, and certain inhospitable shores were taken possession of in the queen’s name, but no very notable discoveries were made. An unsuccessful search was made after the five men lost in the previous expedition. The Aid arrived home at Milford Haven on 22nd August, and the others later,—one at Yarmouth, and others at Bristol. Although no results had been obtained from the “ore,” yet another and much larger expedition was planned. Frobisher was honoured with the thanks of the queen, who showed great interest in the expeditions. The new fleet consisted of thirteen vessels of various kinds, including two queen’s ships of 400 and 200 tons, with one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and twenty pioneers. For the other ships there was an aggregate crew of two hundred and fifty men. The squadron sailed from Harwich on the 31st May 1578, and reached Greenland 19th June, and Frobisher Bay about a month later. A considerable amount of hitherto unexplored area of land and water was roughly surveyed in this voyage, including a sail of sixty miles up Hudson’s Strait, and more would probably have been done, but for dissensions and discontent among the crews. A vast quantity of the golden (?) earth was shipped, and the expedition returned to England, which was reached in October.

SIR MARTIN FROBISHER PASSING GREENWICH.

Frobisher’s next public employment was of a different character. In command of the Primrose, he accompanied Drake’s expedition to the West Indies in 1585, and shared in the rich booty of which the Spaniards were spoiled during that cruise. In 1588 Frobisher held a high command, and with his ship, the Triumph, rendered distinguished service in the actions with the Spanish Armada. The Triumph was the largest ship in the English fleet, being of about 1000 tons burthen, or the same as the floating wonder of Henry VIII., the Henry Grace à Dieu,—but not so heavily armed. The Henry carried no fewer than one hundred and forty-one guns, whereas the Triumph was armed with only sixty-eight guns. Frobisher proved well worthy of his important command. For his skilful and courageous service, in the series of actions against the Armada, he received the well-earned honour of knighthood, at the hands of the lord high admiral. In 1591 he commanded a small fleet that cruised on the coast of Spain, with hostile and plundering designs. He burned one rich galleon in the course of this cruise, and captured and brought home another. Having got the prize safely disposed of, the gallant old hero answered a summons from the court of Cupid, and, after a short courtship, he led the fair daughter of Lord Wentworth to the altar. The following year, however, he was again afloat in command of a cruising fleet, as successor to Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been recalled.

One of the most important and brilliant actions, among the many in which Sir Martin had taken a leading part, was his next, and, alas! his last,—the taking of Brest from the Spaniards. The place was strong, well armed, and stubbornly defended, with obstinate valour. Sir Martin first attacked from the sea, but, impetuous and impatient, was dissatisfied with the result of his cannonade, and, landing his blue-jackets, headed them in a desperate storming assault, which compelled the surrender of the garrison. The surrender cost the assailants a heavy price in the lives of many brave heroes, Sir Martin Frobisher himself, their gallant leader, receiving a musket ball in his side. His wound was unskilfully treated, and he died from its effects at Plymouth two days after the action,—22nd November 1594. His body was conveyed to London, and interred at St. Giles’s, Cripplegate.

Sir Martin Frobisher was a man of great and varied capabilities as a navigator and commander; enthusiastic, enterprising, skilful, manly, and of dauntless valour, but rather rough and despotic, and not possessed of the polished manners, airs, and graces that adorn carpet knights and make men shine in courts.

THOMAS CAVENDISH,
GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER.
CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND ENGLISHMAN WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE GLOBE.

In the time of Queen Elizabeth it was not unusual for men of the highest rank to devote their private fortunes and their personal services to the advancement of what were considered national interests, with the tacit understanding that the adventurers should consider themselves at liberty to engage in operations fitted to serve their own private interests, concurrently with those of the State. The morals of the time were somewhat lax, and “sea divinity,” as Fuller terms it, was taken to sanction extraordinary transactions in the appropriation and treatment of property, especially such as was owned by the State or the subjects of Spain. To spoil the Spaniards by all and every possible means, seems to have been esteemed an object of honourable and patriotic enterprise, in which Sir Francis Drake distinguished himself, as he did also by much nobler and more disinterested service. Thomas Cavendish was a contemporary of Drake, and in his wake plundered the Spaniards, and he also followed him in circumnavigating the globe,—the second Englishman who achieved that feat.

Thomas was a descendant of Sir William Cavendish; he was born at the family mansion, Trimley, Suffolk, about the year 1560. His father died while he was still a minor. Trimley, his birthplace, is situate on the river Orwell, below Ipswich. The locality in which he spent his early days probably induced a liking for the sea.

In April 1585, Cavendish accompanied Sir Richard Grenville in an expedition to Virginia, its object being the establishment of a colony as designed by Sir Walter Raleigh. The colony was a failure, and Drake, as we have related in another place, subsequently brought home the emigrants sent out to form it. Cavendish accompanied the expedition in a ship that had been equipped at his own cost, and acquired considerable nautical experience in the course of the voyage.

THOMAS CAVENDISH.

On his return to England, Cavendish applied such means as he could command to the equipment of a small squadron with which to commence business as a buccaneer. He diligently got together all the existing maps and charts accessible, and, through the influence of Lord Hunsdon, he was so fortunate as to obtain a queen’s commission. The “flag-ship” of Cavendish, admiral and commander, was the Desire, of only 120 tons burthen; the others were, the Content, of 60 tons, and the Hugh Gallant, a barque of 40 tons. The crews consisted of 123 officers, sailors, and soldiers, all told. The expedition sailed from Plymouth on the 21st July 1586. The squadron first touched at Sierra Leone, where they landed, and plundered and burned the town. Having obtained supplies of water, fish, and lemons, the squadron sailed for the coast of America, and reached in 48° S. a harbour on the coast of Patagonia, in which they anchored, and which, in honour of the admiral’s ship, they named Port Desire. Here the crews were enabled to make an agreeable change in the ship’s dietary, by slaughtering the sea-lions and the penguins that abounded on the coast; the flesh of the young sea-lions, after a long course of salt junk, seemed to the sailors equal to lamb or mutton. Towards the end of December the squadron sailed southward for Magellan’s Straits, which were entered on the 6th January 1587. At a short distance from the entrance, lights were seen from the north shore that were supposed to be signals, and on the morning following a boat was sent off for information. Unmistakable signs were made, as the shore was approached, by three men waving such substitutes as they could find for flags. It was found that they were the wretched survivors of one of the colonies that the Spaniards had attempted to plant, in order to intercept Drake on his expected return, and to prevent, in the future, any buccaneer from ravaging the coast as he had done. The crops of the perishing colonists had all failed; they were constantly harassed by the natives, subject to unspeakable hardships; out of four hundred men and thirty women landed by Pedro Sarmiento, about seven years before Cavendish’s visit, only fifteen men and three women survived. He offered the poor creatures a passage to Peru. They at first hesitated to trust themselves with the English heretic, but, after brief reflection on the misery and hopelessness of their situation, eagerly accepted the offer,—but unhappily too late. A favourable wind sprang up, of which Cavendish took advantage, and set sail. Concern for the safety of his crew, desire to escape as speedily as possible from the perilous navigation of the Straits, and probably eagerness to make a beginning with the real objects of the expedition—the acquisition of plunder—overbore any pity he may have felt for the wretched colonists, whose heartless abandonment to hopeless misery attached shame and infamy to the Spanish Government responsible for sending them thither, rather than to the bold buccaneer, with no humanitarian pretensions, who had come upon them accidentally. He brought off one Spaniard, Tomé Hernandez, who wrote an account of the colony.

On the 24th of February the squadron emerged from the Straits and sailed northwards, reaching the island of Mocha about the middle of March, but not before the little ships had been much knocked about, by weather of extreme violence. The crews landed at several points, and laid the natives under contribution for provisions. They were mistaken for Spaniards, and were in some cases received with undisguised hatred, in others with servility. On the 30th they anchored in the Bay of Quintero, to the north of Valparaiso, which was passed by mistake, without being “tapped.” Notice of the appearance of the suspicious squadron seems to have reached some of the authorities. Hernandez, the Spaniard, was sent ashore to confer with them. On returning, he reported that the English might have what provisions they required. Remaining for a time at their anchorage here, parties were sent ashore for water and such provisions as could be obtained. In one of these visits, the men were suddenly attacked by a party of two hundred horsemen, who cut off, and took prisoners, twelve of the Englishmen. Six of the English prisoners were executed at Santiago as pirates, although, as has been said, with somewhat arrogant indignation, “they sailed with the queen’s commission, and the English were not at open war with Spain.”

Putting again to sea, the adventurers captured near Arica a vessel laden with Spanish treasure. The cargo was appropriated, and the ship—re-named the George—attached to the squadron. Several other small vessels were taken and burned. One of these from Santiago had been despatched to the viceroy, with the intelligence that an English squadron was upon the coast. Before they were taken, they threw the despatches overboard, and Cavendish resorted to the revolting expedient of torture, to extort their contents from his captives. The mode of torture employed was the “thumbikins,” an instrument in which the thumb, by screw or lever power, could be crushed into shapeless pulp. Having got what information he could wring out of his prisoners, Cavendish burned the vessel and took the crew with him. One of them was a Greek pilot, who knew the coast of Chili, and might be useful. After a visit to a small town where supplies were obtained—not by purchase—of bread, wine, poultry, fruit, etc., and some small prizes taken, the adventurers proceeded to Paita, where they landed on the 20th May. The town, consisting of about two hundred houses, was regularly built and very clean. The inhabitants were driven out, and the town burned to the ground. Cavendish would not allow his men to carry away as much as they could, as he expected they would need a free hand to resist a probable attack. After wrecking the town and burning a ship in the harbour, the squadron again sailed northwards, and anchored in the harbour of the island of Puna. The Indian chief, who lived in a luxuriously furnished palace, surrounded by beautiful gardens, and the other inhabitants had fled, carrying as many of their valuables with them as possible. The English visitors sank a Spanish ship of 250 tons that was in the harbour, burned down a fine large church, and brought away the bells.

PERILOUS POSITION IN THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN.

On the 2nd June, before weighing anchor at Puna, a party of Cavendish’s men, strolling about and foraging, was suddenly attacked by about one hundred armed Spaniards. Seven of the Englishmen were killed, three were made prisoners, two were drowned, and eight escaped. To avenge this attack, Cavendish landed with as powerful a force as he could muster, drove out the Spaniards, burned the town and four ships that were building; he also destroyed the gardens and orchards, and committed as much havoc generally as was in his power. Again proceeding northwards to Rio Dolce, he sent some Indian captives ashore, and sank the Hugh Gallant, the crew of which he needed for the manning of the other two ships. On the 9th July a new ship of 120 tons was taken; the sails and ropes were appropriated, and the ship burned. A Frenchman, taken in this vessel, gave valuable information respecting a Manilla ship, then expected from the Philippines. The record of the proceedings of the squadron continues most inglorious, including the burning of the town, the church, and the custom-house of Guatulco; the burning of two new ships at Puerto de Navidad; capturing three Spanish families, a carpenter, a Portuguese, and a few Indians,—the carpenter and the Portuguese only being kept for present and future use. On the 12th September the adventurers reached the island of St. Andrew, where a store of wood and of dried and salted wild-fowl was laid in, and the sailors, failing other supply, had a fresh meat change in cooking the iguanas, which were found more palatable, than inviting in appearance. Towards the end of September the fleet put into the Bay of Mazattan, where the ships were careened, and water was taken in. During October the fleet cruised, in wait for the expected prize, not far wide of Cape St. Lucas. On the 4th November a sail was sighted, which proved to be the Santa Anna, which was overtaken after some hours’ chase, and promptly attacked. The Spaniards resisted with determination and courage, although they had no more effective means of defence than stones, which they hurled at the boarders, from behind such defective shelters as they could improvise. Two separate accounts of the action have been preserved, both written by adventurers who were present. After receiving a volley of stones from the defenders, one narrator proceeds: “We new-trimmed our sails and fitted every man his furniture, and gave them a fresh encounter with our great ordnance, and also with our small-shot, raking them through and through, to the killing and wounding of many of their men. Their captain, still like a valiant man with his company, stood very stoutly in close fights, not yielding as yet. Our general, encouraging his men afresh, with the whole voice of trumpets, gave them the other encounter with our great ordnance and all our small-shot, to the great discouragement of our enemies,—raking them through in divers places, killing and wounding many of their men. They being thus discouraged and spoiled, and their ship being in hazard of sinking by reason of the great shot which were made, whereof some were made under water, within five or six hours’ fight, sent out a flag of truce, and parleyed for mercy, desiring our general to save their lives and take their goods, and that they would presently yield. Our general, of his goodness, promised them mercy, and called to them to strike their sails, and to hoist out their boat and come on board; which news they were full glad to hear of, and presently struck their sails and hoisted out their boat, and one of their chief merchants came on board unto our general, and, falling down upon his knees, offered to have kissed our general’s feet, and craved mercy.” It is satisfactory that this craven submission was not made by the commander of the Santa Anna, who must have been a noble hero to stand out, almost without arms of any kind, against the “great ordnance and small-shot” of his enemy for five or six hours. The narrator proceeds: “Our general graciously pardoned both him and the rest, upon promise of their true-dealing(!) with him and his company concerning such riches as were in the ship, and sent for their captain and pilot, who, at their coming, used the like duty and reverence as the former did. The general, out of his great mercy and humanity, promised their lives and good usage.”

Cavendish and his crews must have been getting rather disgusted with their hard and bitter experiences up to the time they fell in with the Santa Anna. They were about sixteen months out from Plymouth; had been much knocked about; had destroyed a great deal of property, but had acquired very little. The Santa Anna compensated for all their hardships and disappointments. It was a ship of 700 tons burthen, the property of the King of Spain, and carried one of the richest cargoes that had ever floated up to that time. It had on board 122,000 pesos of gold, i.e. as many ounces of the precious metal, with a cargo of the finest silks, satins, damasks, wine, preserved fruits, musk, spices, etc. The ship carried a large number of passengers, with the most luxurious provision for their accommodation and comfort. The captors entered with alacrity upon the unrestrained enjoyment of luxuries such as many of them had never known before. Cavendish carried his prize into a bay within Cape St. Lucas, where he landed the crew and passengers,—about one hundred and ninety in all. He allowed them a supply of water, a part of the ship’s stores, some wine, and the sails of the dismantled prize to construct tents for shelter. He gave arms to the men to enable them to defend their company against the natives. He also allowed them some planks wherewith to build a raft, or such craft as they might be able to construct for their conveyance to the mainland. Among the passengers were two Japanese youths, both of whom could read and write their own language. There were also three boys from Manilla, one of whom, on the return of the expedition to England, was presented to the Countess of Essex,—such an attendant being at that time considered evidence of almost regal life and splendour. These youths, with a Portuguese who had been in Canton, the Philippines, and Japan, with a Spanish pilot, Cavendish took with him.

Much anger and discontent were excited in connection with the division of the spoils, especially among the crew of the Content, who thought Cavendish took more than a fair share for himself and the company of the Desire—his own ship. The threatened mutiny was, however, suppressed, and a grand gala was held on the queen’s day—17th November, with eating and drinking, firing of guns, and a display of fireworks, with as a grand set-piece the blazing Santa Anna, with all of her precious cargo on board that the captors could not carry away with them. They left the ship burned down to the water’s edge. After they left the burning ship, the fire providentially freed the wreck from the anchors, and the flood-tide carried her still burning into the bay. The abandoned company were happily enabled to extinguish the flames, and to save so much of the hull as with some fitting furnished them with a means of escape from the inhospitable shore upon which they had been cast.

After leaving Cape St. Lucas, the Content fell behind, and was never again seen by Cavendish, who set sail to cross the Pacific by a course not very widely different from that taken by Drake.

In January 1588, Cavendish reached the Ladrone Islands, a few miles from which an incident occurred that does not redound to his credit. A fleet of fifty or more canoes surrounded the Desire with cargoes of fish, potatoes, plantains, etc., to exchange them, as they had been accustomed to do with the Spaniards, for pieces of iron. The islanders were importunate and rather troublesome, and, to get rid of them, “our general” and five of his men fired a volley into them. The savages were so expert as divers and swimmers that the sportsmen could not tell how many they killed. These natives were of tawny colour, tall, stout, and naked. Their canoes, six or seven yards in length, but very narrow, were admirably made, and had carved figureheads. They had square and triangular sails of a cloth made from rushes.

On the voyage, while in the vicinity of the Philippines, an important secret oozed out. The Portuguese taken from the Santa Anna let it be known that the Spanish pilot had prepared a letter to be secretly conveyed to the governor at Manilla, explaining how the Desire might be surprised and overpowered. The Spaniard was summarily hanged for his patriotism. The further course of the homeward voyage was from Manilla to the Moluccas, passed about the middle of February; Java; the Cape of Good Hope; St. Helena, in June; to Plymouth, which was reached on the 9th September 1588; Cavendish’s circumnavigation of the globe—the third that had been accomplished—having been made in two years and fifty days, a considerably shorter time than had been occupied by either Magellan and his successors or Sir Francis Drake,—but mere speed in getting back to a home port had not been an object with either of the three distinguished navigators.

Accounts differ as to the style in which Cavendish made his return entry into Plymouth. According to one account, he encountered, for four days, a violent storm in the Channel, from which the tempest-tossed adventurers happily escaped, and, says N. H., “on 10th September 1588, like wearied men, through the favour of the Almighty, we got into Plymouth, where the townsmen received us with all humanity.” Anyway, his arrival, like that of Drake before him, caused a great sensation at Plymouth.

ROUNDING THE CAPE DE BUENA ESPERANÇA.

Cavendish was received as a hero, and appeared to consider himself worthy of his fame and the honours conferred upon him. He had acquired great wealth, albeit dishonestly, and his exploits had been distinguished in many instances by wanton outrage and gratuitous destruction of life and property. He, however, appeared to be unconscious of having done anything to be ashamed of, and probably held in accord with those avowed by the Rev. Dr. Thos. Fuller, prebendary of Sarum, who, as apologist for Sir Francis Drake’s piratical performances, considered that “his case was clear in sea divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe doctrines which make for their own profit.” In a letter to his patron, Lord Hunsdon, he writes: “It hath pleased Almighty God to suffer me to circumpass the whole globe of the world, entering in at the Strait of Magellan, and returning by the Cape de Buena Esperança; in which voyage I have either discovered or brought certain intelligence of all the rich places in the world, which were ever discovered by any Christian. I navigated along the coast of Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I burned and sank nineteen ships, small and great. All the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled; and had I not been discovered upon the coast, I had taken great quantity of treasure. The matter of most profit unto me was a great ship of the king’s which I took at California, which ship came from the Philippines, being one of the richest of merchandise that ever passed those seas. From the Cape of California, being the uttermost part of all New Spain, I navigated to the islands of the Philippines, hard upon the coast of China, of which country I have brought such intelligence as hath not been heard of in these parts; the stateliness and riches of which country [China] I fear to make report of, lest I should not be credited. I found out by the way homeward the island of Santa Helena; and from that island God hath suffered me to return unto England. All which services, with myself, I humbly prostrate at Her Majesty’s feet, desiring the Almighty long to continue her reign amongst us; for at this day she is the most famous and victorious princess that liveth in the world.” Although Cavendish contributed comparatively little to the sum of geographical knowledge by accurate reports of any original discoveries he had made, apart from the moral aspect of the principal incidents in his career, he was indisputably a remarkable man, and rarely since the world began has a young man of only twenty-eight years achieved such a record as he had done, at the end of his circumnavigation, illustrative of daring bravery, indomitable perseverance, and manly endurance.

The wealth with which Cavendish returned was considered sufficient to have bought “a fair earldom”; but it was not to his taste to settle, or found a family. His expedition had been undertaken to repair his shattered fortunes, and had done so satisfactorily, but it was probably “light come, light go” with him. The treasure of the Santa Anna had been put into “a bag with holes,” and what did not run through was providently applied by Cavendish to fitting out another expedition on an extended scale, which it was expected would do a much larger business, and prove even a more pronounced success than the last. The new squadron consisted of “three tall ships” and two pinnaces,—the galleon Leicester, in which Cavendish sailed; the Desire, his old ship, commanded by Captain John Davis; the Roebucke, the Black Pinnace, and the Daintie. The expedition sailed from Plymouth on 26th August 1591, which was from the beginning a series of dreary, unrelieved misery and disaster. The Straits of Magellan were reached in April 1592, and passed through about half-way. Disagreements arose among the crews, and Cavendish seemed to have lost his power of command. He determined to return to Santos. The ships parted company, and the last notice of Cavendish in the homeward voyage of the Leicester is his own notice of the death of his cousin John Locke in 8° N. latitude. Cavendish is supposed to have died on board a few days later, the victim of grief and disappointment. While tossed about in the Desire after the ships had parted company, Captain Davis was, on the 14th August 1592, “driven in among certain islands never before discovered by any known relation, lying fifty leagues or better off the shore, east and northerly from the Straits.” These were the Falkland Islands, of which Captain Davis has certainly the honour of being the original discoverer, although the discovery has been claimed by Sir Richard Hawkins, and certain foreign navigators.[1] Several more or less complete accounts of this last disastrous voyage of Cavendish have been preserved; one of them, drawn up at sea by himself, is a most affecting and depressing narrative. In this account he writes: “We had been almost four months between the coast of Brazil and the Straits, being in distance not above six hundred leagues, which is commonly run in twenty or thirty days; but such was the adverseness of our fortune, that in coming thither we spent the summer, and found the Straits in the beginning of a most extreme winter, not endurable for Christians. After the month of May was come in, nothing but such flights of snow, and extremity of frosts, as in all my life I never saw any to be compared with them. This extremity caused the weak men to decay; for, in seven or eight days in this extremity, there died forty men and sickened seventy, so that there were not fifteen men able to stand upon the hatches.” Mr. John Lane, a friend of Captain Davis, writing of their experiences in the middle of “charming May,” says: “In this time we endured extreme storms, with perpetual snow, where many of our men died of cursed famine and miserable cold, not having wherewith to cover their bodies nor to fill their stomachs, but living by mussels, water, and weeds of the sea, with a small relief from the ship’s stores of meal sometimes.” He makes the shocking disclosure that “all the sick men in the galleon” (Cavendish’s ship) “were most uncharitably put on shore into the woods, in the snow, wind, and cold, when men of good health could scarcely endure it, where they ended their lives in the highest degree of misery.”

[1] Captain John Davis achieved in this early age deserved celebrity as a navigator and discoverer. He made three voyages, under the sanction and authority of the English Government, in search of a North-West passage to the Pacific. In the first, in 1585, he pushed his way round the southern end of Greenland, across the strait that from then until now has borne his name—Davis Strait—and along the coast of what is now known as Baffin’s Land, to the Cape of God’s Mercy, which he thus named in the belief that his task was virtually accomplished. In the second voyage, 1586, he made little further progress; in the third, 1587, he reached the entrance to the strait afterwards explored by, and named after, Hudson. Davis, after other important nautical services, was, when on his return from the East Indies, killed by pirates off the coast of Malacca. Davis was an author as well as a navigator.

Anthropology, natural history, or other scientific subjects, had no attractions for the adventurers, whose attention, and such powers as were left with them, were absorbed in their conflicts with storm and tempest, cold, hunger, and nakedness. After parting company they never again reunited, or in any of the separated ships made any attempt to carry out the objects of the expedition. Almost all perished miserably. It is stated that Davis, whom Cavendish charged with treachery and desertion, did all that was possible to find and rejoin his leader, but without success. Long after the separation of the fleet, Davis returned to Port Desire, and three times attempted unsuccessfully to pass through the Straits in search for Cavendish. Davis and a few more survived their terrible hardships. Out of a crew of seventy-six men who sailed from England, only a remnant of fifteen lived to return with Davis, in misery and weakness so great that they could neither “take in or heave out a saile.” Davis, with the distressed survivors, arrived off Bearhaven, Ireland, on 11th June 1593, fully a year after the death and burial of Cavendish at sea.

Cavendish was far from faultless. He was passionate and impetuous, and was still young at the end of his adventurous life. He was a University man, a bred aristocrat, a courtier, with a contempt for humanitarian doctrines and practices. Society, as it was constituted then, has to share the blame of his excesses, and especially his recklessness of human life. It was a comparatively venial offence in those days to fire into a crowd of South Sea Islanders with as little hesitation as if they had been a flock of wild ducks. His high spirit, courage, and intrepidity are, however, indisputable.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S FAVOURITE MINISTER.
CHAPTER V. AMERICAN COLONISATION SCHEMES.

Endowed with a rare combination of high qualities and capability, Sir Walter Raleigh may be pronounced one of the most distinguished men of the Elizabethan era. He approved himself a brave soldier, an intrepid sailor, and a thorough disciplinarian; in other directions he was a learned scholar, a profound philosopher, an eloquent orator, and an elegant courtier.

Raleigh’s family traced its lineage from before the Conquest, and Walter could claim descent from, and connection with, three of the best Devonshire houses—the Gilberts, the Carews, and the Champernouns. His father, Walter Raleigh the elder, was the second husband of Catherine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernoun of Modbury. By a former husband, Otto Gilbert, this lady had two sons, Humphrey and Adrian, destined to distinguish themselves as navigators and colonists, with whom Walter Raleigh was intimately associated in their enterprises.

Walter Raleigh was born, according to Camden, in 1552, at Hayes Barton, East Budleigh, a farmstead in Devonshire, pleasantly situated near the coast.

Information touching Raleigh’s education and the early part of his life is vague and meagre, few facts being on record concerning him prior to 1569, when, it is stated, he left Oxford, where he was first a resident at Christ Church, from which he removed to Oriel. It is supposed that he commenced at Oxford his acquaintance with Sir Philip Sydney, Hakluyt, and Camden.

Camden states, in his Annales, that Raleigh was one of a hundred gentlemen volunteers who proceeded to France with Henry Champernoun, Raleigh’s cousin, to the assistance of the Huguenots. The service of the English contingent appears to have commenced about the end of the year 1569. References are made by Raleigh in his History of the World to the Huguenot troubles, and his own connection with them; amongst others, to the conduct of the Protestants at the battle of Jarnac, after the death of the Prince of Condé; and to the retreat at Moncontour, of which he was an eye-witness. It is conjectured that Raleigh spent about six years in France in active service.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

It has been discovered by modern historians that in 1577 Raleigh was attached in some capacity to Queen Elizabeth’s court, and that he was also “of the Middle Temple,” but whether called to the Bar, or only lodging in the Temple, or “eating his terms,” is not certain. He had reached vigorous manhood, was twenty-five years of age, of cultivated mind, active temperament, enterprising and ambitious. He was familiar with the exploits of Hawkins and Drake, and was probably fired by the romance of the Spanish Indies. His half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had made several voyages to the Gulf of Mexico and the country afterwards called Virginia in honour of Queen Elizabeth, and it has been considered probable that on one or more occasions Walter was his companion. It is known that he was with Gilbert in an unfortunate expedition to the St. Lawrence in 1578. In the following year he was committed to the Fleet prison for a violent difference with another courtier. He was released after a short confinement, however, and in the same year was stopped when in the act of starting on a piratical expedition against Spain.

At the close of 1579 the Spanish Catholics invaded Ireland. The invading expedition, which came from Ferrol, first landed at Dingle, but not feeling so secure there as they desired, they sailed four miles farther west to Senerwick Bay, and built there the Fort del Ore, upon a sandy isthmus, from which the invaders thought they might easily, if pressed, escape to sea. The Earl of Desmond and the Geraldines coalesced with their foreign co-religionists, casting off their allegiance to Elizabeth. Raleigh was sent to take part with the force then in Ireland upholding the queen’s power, and to assist in exterminating the invaders.

Raleigh left London in January 1580, with one hundred foot soldiers. At the Isle of Wight they were transferred into ships of the queen’s fleet. On the 22nd February, Raleigh wrote from Cork to Lord Burghley, giving an account of his voyage. His arrival was welcome, and timely, to his friend Sir Warham Saint Leger, who was holding Cork with great difficulty, with an insufficient garrison of only forty Englishmen.

It does not appear that Raleigh entered at once upon active duty, as his pay only begins July 13, 1580; he probably served, however, irrespective of this circumstance. In August he was associated with Saint Leger, provost-marshal of Munster, in a commission to try the younger brother of the Earl of Desmond, whom they sentenced to be hung.

In August, Lord Grey of Wilton arrived in Dublin, to relieve Pelham of the chief command in Ireland. He had with him the afterwards famous poet, Edmund Spenser, as his secretary. Raleigh remained in Ireland, and thus were brought together two of the most gifted men of their time; they naturally, as they became known to each other, entered into a close friendship.

In the operations for the suppression of the rebellion that followed, Raleigh took an active and influential part, and was for a time practically governor of Munster. There was much hard work in the campaign, and considerable scope for dash and military capability, which Raleigh exhibited in a high degree, but there was little “glory” to be derived from skirmishes, raids, and forays, or from scouring the woods and ravines for hunted rebels, and it must have been a welcome relief to Raleigh when a summons from London, to which he returned in December 1581, put an end to his military service in Ireland. An established reputation for military prowess had preceded him.

Raleigh, as before stated, was attached in some capacity to the court in 1577, but had not then entered into personal relations, or become a favourite, with the queen, who reappointed him a captain to serve in Ireland, but decreed in connection with the appointment,—“That our pleasure is that the said [Irish] land be, in the meantime, till he [Raleigh] repair into that Our realm, delivered to some such as he shall depute to be his lieutenant there.” “For that he is, for some considerations, by Us excused to stay here.” The Duc d’Alençon, who had at this time come from France to woo the queen, was not very favourably spoken of by Her Majesty. He served probably as a foil to manly, handsome Raleigh, who was now about thirty years of age, and described as “having a good presence in a well-compacted person; a strong natural wit, and a better judgment; with a bold and plausible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage.” He was “about six feet in height, with dark hair and a high colour, a facial expression of great brightness, personable from the virile force of his figure, and illustrating these attractions by a splendid taste in dress. His clothes were at all times noticeably gorgeous; and to the end of his life his person was commonly bedizened with jewels to his very shoes.” The sprightly soldier-poet never lost his decided Devonshire accent, which his royal mistress liked rather than otherwise. For several years he basked in the almost perfectly unclouded sunshine of her smiles, and received openly many distinguishing marks of the queen’s favour. Old writers give some interesting illustrations of the little passages of wit and gallantry that marked their intercourse. On one occasion, it is related, when the queen, with Raleigh in attendance, had to alight from her carriage into a puddle,—roads were bad in those days,—the gay cavalier whipt off his dainty cloak of silk plush, and spread it out as a foot-cloth to protect her feet from the mud. The sacrifice of the cloak was highly appreciated, and proved to have been—although, perhaps, not so designed on Raleigh’s part—an excellent investment.

The personal intimacy and intercourse between the queen and Raleigh were as close as was permissible between a sovereign and a subject. Had the queen given the Duc d’Alençon half the encouragement she gave to Raleigh, his suit would have ended in a royal wedding. Sir Walter did not dare, probably, to make the queen an offer of his heart and hand, but he did not fail to give her an “inkling” concerning his feelings. On a pane in the window of her boudoir or other apartment, he wrote with his diamond ring—

“Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.”

His royal inamorata, holding probably that “there is much virtue in an ‘if,’” replied—

“If thy heart fail thee, then climb not at all.”

Raleigh did not go to Ireland to take over from his lieutenant command of the company of infantry of which he was the nominal commander, but had a confidential place by the queen’s side, and was her counsellor in divers weighty matters.

In 1583, Raleigh came into possession, through the queen’s favour, of the estates of Stolney and Newland, formerly possessions of All Souls’ College, Oxford. He was also favoured with letters patent for the “Farm of Wines,” afterwards one of the principal sources of his wealth. Under this grant each vintner throughout the kingdom had to pay twenty shillings a year for a licence to sell wines. The grant also included a share to Raleigh of fines accruing to the Crown, under previously existing wine statutes. From his wine trade emoluments Raleigh realised at one period about £2000 a year, equivalent to about £12,000 of our money. From certain causes the amount of his receipts from this source declined, and he afterwards resigned his patent to James I. for £1000 per annum.

Meantime, Raleigh’s half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had been making, at great cost, persevering attempts to establish a colony or colonies in North America, but unfortunately without success. Gilbert had obtained a charter for his colonisation project extending for six years from 1578. After repeated failures of his enterprises, particularly in 1579, he gave up, for a time at least, their further prosecution, and lent three of his ships to the Government for service on the coast of Ireland.

“RALEIGH WHIPT OFF HIS CLOAK OF SILK PLUSH, AND SPREAD IT OUT TO PROTECT THE QUEEN’S FEET FROM THE MUD.”

Raleigh had always befriended his courageous relative, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and now used all his court influence in his favour. His charter was about to expire. The queen was much importuned to renew it, and reluctantly did so, but refusing permission to her favourite, Raleigh, to take part personally in the enterprise. He expended, however, a large sum in aid of the fresh expedition to North America, which Sir Humphrey was resolved to undertake. One of the five ships that constituted the fleet—the Ark Raleigh—was built and fitted out entirely by Sir Walter, at a cost of £2000. The expedition sailed June 11th, 1583, and met with a series of disasters, including the death of its resolute and gallant commander. In this expedition Newfoundland was touched at, and taken possession of by Gilbert in the queen’s name.

Undismayed by Humphrey Gilbert’s repeated and disastrous failures, Raleigh continued to believe in the ultimate success of these American colonisation schemes, and he induced the queen to renew the charter, to which the parties were Raleigh himself, as chief; Adrian Gilbert, a younger brother of Sir Humphrey; and John Davis, a courageous and experienced navigator. These three were incorporated as representing “The College of the Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West Passage.” Realisation of the queen’s dream, and desire after a shorter route via the north-west to China, was the professed object of the adventurers, but Raleigh was careful to secure subsidiary material advantages, and the charter gave full powers to the adventurers to inhabit or retain, build or fortify, at Raleigh’s discretion, any remote lands that he might find hitherto unoccupied by any Christian power.

Raleigh was financier and managing director, but not the personal conductor of the next American expedition. In April 1584 a small fleet sailed for the West, under the command of Captains Amadas and Barlow. In May they passed the Canaries; in June they fell in with the Bahama Islands. While still far out at sea, delicate odours, sweet as those of “Araby the blest,” were wafted to them from Florida, at which they touched; thereafter sailing northwards, they landed at, and, in name of the queen, annexed the islands then called Roanoke and Wokoken, with the mainland adjacent. In honour of Queen Elizabeth, the newly-annexed country was named Virginia. An ancient writer pronounces the name appropriate, from the country having been discovered in the reign of the Virgin Queen, and also because the country seemed “to retain the virgin purity and plenty of the first creation, and the people their primitive innocence.” Early in 1585 Raleigh sent out a second expedition to Virginia under Sir Richard Grenville; others were afterwards sent, and, under Ralph Lane, settled for a time on Roanoke, but failed to succeed as settlers, or to justify the sanguine expectations of Raleigh, who was by this time very rich, and could well afford to carry out his costly colonisation hobby. He was also befriended by a success that befell his lieutenant, Sir Richard Grenville, who, in returning to England, fell in with a treasure-laden Spanish ship of an estimated value of £50,000, which he captured and brought safely into Plymouth.

In addition to his other rich privileges and possessions, the queen granted to Raleigh a liberty to export broadcloth. This fresh mark of royal favour was disapproved by Lord Burghley, who estimated the increase to Raleigh’s income from the woollen broadcloth trade at the equivalent of £18,000 of our present money. It is to be said for Sir Walter that his enormous wealth was not wasted in vice and debauchery, although personal ambition had probably a good deal to do in directing his expenditure. He probably aspired to the creation of a state in the West, with himself as its chief, that for riches, dignity, and power, would excel the possessions of Spain. His were not the views or aims of the mere grubber after lucre for its own sake, or for his own personal aggrandisement. He was not indifferent to any promise the newly-found region might give of pearls or precious metals, but was equally solicitous concerning its useful mineral, vegetable, and animal products, and he appointed Mr. Thomas Hariot, an able scientific and practical man, commissioner to collect trustworthy information.

At this time, 1584, Raleigh was very much in close attendance on the queen, at one or other of her palaces, at Greenwich or Windsor. His own residence was in the then rural village of Islington. The immense revenue derived from his wine and broadcloth businesses enabled him to indulge in such a scale of expenditure as could only be incurred by a merchant prince or other opulent personage. He leased from the queen, Durham House, situated on the river, in the locality now known as the Adelphi. This was a vast palace, occupied at one time by the bishops of Durham, and afterwards by Queen Elizabeth herself. This stately building was Raleigh’s town house from 1584 to 1603.

In the year 1584, or the year following, Raleigh was knighted, and advanced to various high dignities. He was appointed Lord Warden of the Stannaries, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Vice-Admiral of Cornwall and Devon, and he entered Parliament, as one of the two members for Devonshire. He was no carpet knight or mere sinecurist, but to the utmost of his ability discharged faithfully the duties devolving upon him in these various offices, personally as far as possible, or by competent deputies. As Warden of the Stannaries he effected important reforms that greatly mitigated the hardships of the Cornish miners. His discrimination, judgment, and resolution fitted him admirably for judge, and director of administration of the affairs that came within his jurisdiction.

Raleigh’s Virginian colony came to an inglorious end in 1586, but he was successful in another less creditable enterprise. He had sent a small fleet for undisguised predatory purposes to the Azores, that did good business. Its commander captured and brought to England a Spanish noble, Don Pedro Sarmiento, a colonial governor. While his ransom was being collected, Raleigh entertained his illustrious guest in splendid style in his grand town house. In 1587, Raleigh took possession of vast estates in Ireland, assigned to his charge by the queen, as gentleman-undertaker; they were part of the escheated lands of the Earl of Esmond, and embraced forty-two thousand acres in the counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary. He did his best to re-people the desolate regions, and brought over many West of England farmers and farm labourers, but his energetic and well-meant efforts met with only partial success.

Up to this time, 1587, Raleigh had been first favourite with the queen, who had showered wealth and influence upon him. The queen had now, however, other flutterers around her in addition to Raleigh. In 1587 one appeared on the scene, who seemed likely to cut them all out. The queen had reached the mature age of fifty-four years; the young Earl of Essex, the new royal favourite, was only twenty. Essex hated “that knave Raleigh,” as he designated him, and did all he could to make mischief between the queen and her favourite.

Turning to affairs more worthy of Raleigh’s nature and powers, the public offices he held necessitated his frequent and rapid movements from one distant locality to another, and withdrew him from court connection and intrigues. His interest in his Virginian enterprise had never flagged. A third expedition he had despatched had proved disastrous; in May 1587 he sent out another, under Captain John White. Another still, under Sir Richard Grenville, that attempted to follow, was stopped by Government at Bideford. Undismayed and resolute, Raleigh sent out from Bideford, in April 1588, two pinnaces, with help to the unfortunate colonists. These fell into the hands of privateers, and returned to England stripped and helpless. Raleigh had up to this time used the most strenuous endeavours, and had spent a princely fortune, in his attempt to found an American colony, but he was unaided by court or other influence, and public affairs now required the application of his energies in another direction. The advent of the “invincible Spanish Armada” was at hand. Raleigh was one of the nine commissioners appointed to consider the best means of resisting the threatened invasion; two of his captains, Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane, were also on the commission, which implies that Sir Walter was an important factor in determining the most important national affairs. In anticipation of the arrival of the Armada he made all necessary preparations for defence, and for assistance in attack, in relation to the counties under his charge, as vice-admiral. He also directed preparations to resist invasion on the east coast—notably at Norfolk. In resistance of the Armada, and assistance in its pursuit and destruction, Raleigh took a prominent part. His ship was amongst those that chased the distressed Spanish galleons northwards. In proof that he had rendered important service in connection with the memorable events, it may be mentioned that on September 5th, 1588, to Raleigh and Drake were consigned equal numbers of wealthy Spanish prisoners, whose ransoms were to be the reward of the achievements of these commanders. Raleigh so distinguished himself in the actions with the Armada by his skill in naval tactics, and his genius for rapid action, as to excite the admiration of Lord Howard, High Admiral, who ever after treated him as a recognised authority in important naval affairs.

In 1589, Raleigh leased his patent rights, title, and interest in the Virginia Colony to a company of merchants, reserving only a royalty upon gold and silver ore that might be raised in the colony. It is not recorded that he ever received profit from this reservation, or from his costly efforts to colonise Virginia, extending over thirteen years. In the settlement of America by Europeans he was the unpaid pioneer. After the defeat of the Armada, Raleigh continued actively occupied in the direction of important schemes in Devonshire, Cornwall, Ireland, and other parts of the kingdom, and was interested also in some privateering enterprises for which the King of Spain—“the natural enemy of England”—and the Armada were convenient covering and excuse. Raleigh’s rovers were not particular as to nationality of vessels attacked; they sacked the English ship Angel Gabriel of a cargo of wine, and took sack and sugar and mace from other vessels, without assurance that these were only reprisals against the Spaniards.

In 1589, Raleigh was associated with Sir Francis Drake in an expedition to restore Dom Antonio to the throne of Portugal, from which he had been ousted by Philip of Spain. Raleigh proceeded with the force up to the walls of Lisbon. The object of the expedition was not achieved, but a good deal of plunder was secured in its course,—Raleigh’s share amounting to £4000. Some of the ships engaged were Raleigh’s own property, amongst them the afterwards famous Revenge, the Crane, and the Garland. These ships were employed as merchantmen or men-of-war, as circumstances might require or interest suggest. The sort of public service they rendered, led to the exploits of their owners and crews being judged with a considerable degree of indulgence by the national authorities, who sometimes overlooked acts of piracy, and in some instances appropriated the proceeds. Raleigh’s men were on this occasion so rash and inconsiderate as to capture two French barques, which brought a sharp reprimand upon Sir Walter, because France and England were at that time at peace with each other. In some cases the cargo of the privateers was “taken over” wholesale by the authorities.

EDMUND SPENSER, AUTHOR OF “THE FAERIE QUEEN.”

The Earl of Essex, as a courtier and an admirer, had a great advantage over Raleigh, thus so much out of the queen’s sight,—and he made the most of it to his rival’s disadvantage. In August 1589, a contemporary writes, “My Lord of Essex hath chased Mr. Raleigh from the court, and hath confined him to Ireland”; but Raleigh contradicted the rumour of his disgrace. However this may have been, he proceeded to Ireland in 1589, and resided in his own house at Youghal,—his most intimate friends and neighbours there being his cousin, Sir George Carew, who lived at Lismore, and the poet, Edmund Spenser, who had been rewarded for his services, as Clerk of the Council of Munster, with a gift of a manor and ruined castle, Kilcolman, formerly the property of the rebel Desmonds. With Spenser, Raleigh had much close, pleasant, sympathetic intercourse. Much of Spenser’s admirable poetical work was done during his comparative seclusion at Kilcolman, and there Raleigh also, perturbed though his life had been, and unfavourable to cultivation of the muses, exercised his extraordinary literary powers. Spenser had nearly completed his great poem, The Faery Queen, the MS. of which was read by Raleigh, who in turn submitted to the friendly criticism of Spenser his Lamentable Lay, a eulogy on Queen Elizabeth, under the name of Cynthia. Mr. Edmund Gosse, as a result of the most searching inquiry into the circumstances and evidence, touching the intercourse between Raleigh and Spenser at this time, says that the evidence is conclusive that Raleigh had then written a poem or poems which Spenser “set on a level with the best works of the age, in verse.”

But Raleigh was an energetic man of business as well as a poet, a man of action more than of dreams, and, during his residence in Ireland, he did much in various ways to promote the material prosperity of the people. He defended the rights of the merchants of Waterford and Wexford, and encouraged their export trade in barrel staves by putting two of his own ships to a regular service between Waterford and the Canaries. Traces of his beneficent work in Munster still remain. Sir John Pope Hennessy says:—

“The richly perfumed wallflowers that he brought to Ireland from the Azores, and the Affane cherry, are still found where he first planted them by the Blackwater. Some cedars he brought to Cork are to this day growing at a place called Tivoli. He also introduced a number of plants, before unknown in England,—among others, the potato, which has had such an influence—for good or evil—on the destinies of Ireland and many other countries,—and the tobacco plant, which was not much approved by the queen, and which he had to use very privately. The four venerable yew-trees, whose branches have grown and intermingled into a sort of summer-house thatch, are pointed out as having sheltered Raleigh, when he first smoked tobacco in his Youghal garden. In that garden he also planted tobacco.... A few steps farther on, where the town-wall of the thirteenth century bounds the walls of the gardens of the Warden’s house, is the famous spot where the first Irish potato was planted by him. In that garden he gave the tubers to the ancestor of the present Lord Southwell, by whom they were spread throughout the province of Munster.”

Such were some of the precious gifts brought by Raleigh’s wisely-instructed and zealous agents from across the Atlantic, and conferred by the enlightened patriot upon his country—boons of infinitely greater value than the plate and pearls of which the Spaniards were deprived by the early English rovers.

About the end of 1589 Raleigh returned to England, taking Spenser with him, whom he introduced to the queen, and he was instrumental in obtaining for him, as the first poet-laureate, a pension of £50 a year. Spenser’s Faery Queen was published by royal command.

“The supplementary letter and sonnets to Raleigh express Spenser’s generous recognition of the services his friend had performed for him, and appeal to Raleigh, as ‘the Summer Nightingale, thy sovereign goddess’s most dear delight,’ not to delay in publishing his own great poem, the Cynthia. The first of the eulogistic pieces prefixed by friends to the Faery Queen was that noble and justly celebrated sonnet signed W. R., which alone would justify Raleigh in taking a place among the English poets.”—Gosse, p. 49.

In 1591, Raleigh’s first published work appeared, being an account of the battle of the Azores, between the Revenge and an armada of the King of Spain. Raleigh sets forth enthusiastically the valour of his gallant and faithful friend, Sir Richard Grenville, as displayed in this contest, one of the most famous in English history, in which Grenville, with one ship containing one hundred men, stood to his guns against a fleet manned by fifteen thousand Spaniards. He ably vindicated Grenville’s conduct, and following historians are agreed that this action was “memorable even beyond credit, and to the height of some heroical fable.” This report has been highly praised by competent critics as attaining the highest level reached by English narrative prose up to the period at which it was written.

About this time, 1591, Raleigh received another valuable gift from the queen, in a long lease of Sherborne, an estate in Dorsetshire, formerly the possession of the dean and chapter of Salisbury. This was, for the future, Raleigh’s favourite country residence.

An expedition was planned at this time that seemed to promise additional wealth and honours to Raleigh. Its objects were to capture the rich fleet of Indian plate-ships, and to take possession of the pearl fisheries of Panama, or to rifle the pearl treasuries. The queen sanctioned and aided the project, and Raleigh threw his whole fortune into it. He was to be admiral of the fleet of fifteen sail, and the chief adventurer, with Sir Martin Frobisher as second in command. The fleet was ready for sea in February 1592, but when the time for sailing arrived, the capricious queen could not, or would not, part with Raleigh, and the fleet sailed under the command of Sir John Burrough.

The courtship of Raleigh and Miss Elizabeth Throgmorton, afterwards Lady Raleigh, a maid of honour of the queen, greatly exasperated his royal mistress, and he was banished for four years from the queen’s presence.

The privateering expedition before referred to, in which Raleigh was so largely interested, proceeded to the Azores. The queen had contributed two ships and £1800, and the citizens of London had given £6000 in aid, but Raleigh retained by much the largest share. Sir John Burrough divided his fleet, and left Frobisher with part of it on the coast of Spain; with his own portion of the fleet he proceeded to the supposed track of the expected richly-laden carracks, to await their coming. The victims came as expected, and fell an easy prey to the spoilers. The Madre de Dios, the largest of the treasure-laden carracks, carried what was unprecedented in those days, the enormous cargo of 1800 tons, valued at £500,000. The cargo included rubies, pearls, ambergris, frankincense, ebony, sandalwood, cypress, ivory, carpets, silks, sarsenets, cinnamon, nutmegs, and cloves, and stores of the most costly productions of India. The unwieldy carrack offered a feeble resistance to Raleigh’s more nimble and mischievous craft, the Roebuck, which speedily overcame her. There had been considerable leakage in the valuable cargo, which had been freely tapped at every port called at, and before Sir John Burrough could get on board to take personal command, his sailors had made the best possible use of their opportunity to do a little privateering, each man for his own hand. Even after these deductions, the Madre de Dios was a prize of great value. It was, after many trials and troubles from wind and weather, and narrow escapes from foundering, safely brought into Dartmouth on the 2nd September, being, as it happened, the queen’s birthday.

At this time Raleigh was a prisoner in the Tower, whither he had been sent by the queen for his misconduct. The arrival of the Madre de Dios with such a store of plunder, awoke greed of gain in all directions, and caused excitement and disorder that baffled the authorities.

THE MADRE DE DIOS.

Sir Robert Cecil, writing from Exeter, 19th September, reports that “for seven miles everybody met on the London road smells of musk or spice, and you could not open a private bag that had not seed pearls in it”; he declares that “there never was such rich spoil.” Lord Burleigh sent down Raleigh, in charge of a keeper, to look after his property—if the term can be applied to plunder—and to restore order. The disgraced favourite received quite an ovation: “His poor servants, to the number of one hundred and forty goodly men, and all the mariners, met him with shouts and joy.” Raleigh was greatly enraged to find so much of the treasure devoured and dispersed. The residue of the property was disposed of, according to the report of a commission of inquiry, which included Sir Francis Drake, Sir Robert Cecil, and four other persons.

From the settlement of the affairs of the Madre de Dios at the close of 1592, Raleigh was occupied with his own business concerns and the discharge of various official duties; amongst others, with the exercise of his judgment and authority, in attempting settlement of the quarrels between English and French fishermen on the south coast, that were rife then, and have continued intermittently, even until this day. He was now about forty years of age, and although his health had suffered from his imprisonment, he was at about the zenith of his vigorous life. He was now married to a well-born lady, worthy of his affection and esteem; he was possessed of a fair competence in wealth and property, the wearer of high honours,—amongst others Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Admiral of Devon and Cornwall, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries. With these possessions and dignities an ordinary man would have been content to settle down as a provincial magnate, but they did not suffice for a man of Raleigh’s active and sanguine temperament, his enterprising and ambitious nature. His life up to this point had been enlivened by many and important stirring adventures and projects, that had elevated him in position and influence, and made him famous. He had proved himself alert, valorous, and capable alike as a soldier and as a naval commander, and in the last-named capacity had rendered brilliant service in connection with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. As a pioneer colonist and a privateer, he had organised spirited and costly projects, but had been prevented by circumstances from personally conducting his enterprises. The desire to command personally in the expeditions that had been successively fitted at his cost, and that were conducted under his orders and directions, had always been alive in his mind,—and now, as it would seem, the time had arrived for him to realise his cherished dream. He hated the Spaniard as thoroughly as Sir Francis Drake did, and had in common with that redoubtable sea-dog the ruling passion and strong desire to shatter the Spaniard’s power, and to appropriate the Spaniard’s treasure. He was in possession, it may be supposed, of all the information existing and accessible concerning Spanish discoveries and possessions in the West Indies and South America, and touching the mineral wealth and other resources of the settlements and resorts of the Spanish and other adventurers in these quarters. Raleigh had probably by this time had enough of court life and intrigues; he had the strong desire, “with God’s blessing, and the queen’s permission, to sail into the sunset, and conquer for England as much as he may of the fabled golden lands and cities of the West.”

Early in 1594, Captain George Popham, a sea rover, sailing in one of Raleigh’s vessels, made a prize at sea of a ship with letters to the King of Spain, announcing that De Berreo, Governor of Trinidad, had annexed Guiana to the Spanish dominions, under the name of the New El Dorado. The despatches contained interesting particulars respecting the country and its inhabitants. The documents were delivered to Raleigh, in whom they excited lively interest, and they stimulated him to prompt energetic action, which resulted in his sailing from Plymouth, bound “Westward ho,” on the 2nd January 1595, with a squadron of five ships, and an equipment of small craft for river navigation. On the voyage out, two ships were captured, from one of which, laden with wine, the ships of the expedition were stocked. In March they arrived off Trinidad, the southern and western coasts of which were surveyed by Raleigh in a boat,—the ships lying at anchor in the channel known as the Serpent’s Mouth. In his History of the World, Raleigh describes some of the natural curiosities he met with at Trinidad, including oysters hanging to the branches of mangrove trees, and a curious liquid pitch, a peculiar product of the island. At the first settlement touched—the Port of Spain—some trading was done with the settlers, and Raleigh endeavoured to worm out any information he could obtain concerning Guiana, stating, with loose regard for veracity, that he was on his way to Virginia, and that his inquiries were prompted by mere curiosity. Very little information they did give him. This much he found out, that De Berreo, the governor, had sent for reinforcements, in anticipation of Raleigh’s arrival. Some of the Indians came on board secretly, and gave harrowing accounts of the horrible cruelties practised upon them by the Spaniards. Raleigh at once marched a part of his force inland to St. Joseph, the capital of the island, which they took by storm, with De Berreo in it. The reports of the Indians as to the hideous cruelty of the governor were fully confirmed. It was a pastime with him to baste the naked bodies of the Indians with boiling fat. Five poor scorched chieftains were found in irons, and near the point of death. They were released, and the town was burned.

Raleigh spared De Berreo, in the hope possibly that he might be useful to him, but De Berreo did his best to bamboozle his captor. The larger vessels of the expedition were left at anchor in the Gulf of Paria, and with a galley, a barge, two wherries, and a ship’s boat carrying a hundred men, with a stock of provisions, Raleigh entered the Orinoco, the flotilla encountering at many points, and in divers ways, formidable difficulties and obstacles in the navigation. Raleigh thus describes the most painful and unpleasant voyage of four hundred miles:—

“We were all driven to lie in the rain and weather in the open air, in the burning sun, and upon the hard boards, and to dress our meat and to carry all manner of furniture, wherewith the boats were so pestered and unsavoury, that what with victuals being most fish, and the wet clothes of so many men thrust together, and the heat of the sun, I will undertake there was never any prison in England that could be found more unsavoury and loathsome, especially to myself, who had for many years before been dieted and cared for in a sort far different.”

The provisions ran short, and hunger, added to other hardships, induced a mutinous spirit, repression of which severely taxed Raleigh’s oratorical powers. At length they approached the inner reach of the vast flat delta, with its mud banks and brackish water. They next came to banks, on which wholesome fruits were found. In the purer water they caught edible fresh fish. The abundance and variety of birds and the brilliancy of the plumage of many of them, excited wonder and admiration. Deer came feeding down to the water’s edge; the alligators, with which the river swarmed, were less pleasant objects of contemplation. A handsome young Indian, who leaped into the water from the galley was seized and devoured by these monsters, immediately he touched its surface. Four canoes laden with excellent bread were met with in the river. The Indians to whom they belonged deserted them on the approach of the strangers.

On the fifteenth day, far-off mountain peaks gladdened the sight of the voyagers. On the evening of the same day the flotilla anchored in the main stream of the great river, at a point a little to the east of San Rafael de Barrancas. Here a welcome change of fare was met with. The eggs of fresh-water turtles were found in vast numbers on the sandy islands. The mountain chains to the south, in the direction of Essiquibo, now assumed defined forms, and furnished a grand feature in the splendid panorama. Parties of the native Indians were met with ashore, who entertained the adventurers hospitably with provisions and the “wine” of the country, of which Raleigh’s captains partook with “strict moderation,” yet in sufficient quantity to make them, as their leader has it, “reasonable pleasant.” Raleigh had an elastic moral code; he was far from being straitlaced or squeamish with regard to either honesty or veracity when he had his own purpose to promote. He did not hesitate to tap the cargo of an alien, or even an English trader, for a gratuitous supply to his wine-cellar; if the governor was fool enough to swallow the tale, he did not scruple to tell it, that he had found Trinidad on his way from England to Virginia. Whatever laxity in morals he may have shown in other directions, it must be said to his credit that he was the chivalrous protector of women; his men were given to understand, and they well knew that the penalty would be inflicted if incurred, that death would be the punishment for violence towards an Indian matron or maiden.

Geography was not a strong point with Raleigh and the adventurers. It is scarcely possible for us to measure or appreciate the difference between the state of geographical knowledge then and now, between their dubious scraps and our full and accurate knowledge,—the contrast between their darkness and our light. So crude were their geographical notions, that it has been said of the explorers that they believed that if they could only sail far enough up the Orinoco, they would emerge into the Pacific on the western coast of South America! They traversed about three degrees of west longitude, through a region until then entirely unknown to Europeans, except Spaniards, who had already planted settlements here and there, at vast distances apart. Raleigh’s party passed one of these, but possibly ignored its existence, his majestic idea being to annex the entire territory in the name of the Queen of England. His intercourse with the Indians was everywhere friendly and pacific, and he was assiduous in impressing them with the danger and disadvantage that would result from their having anything to do with the Spaniards otherwise than by driving them out of the country; he strongly recommended England as a safe and benign protector.

RALEIGH ON THE ORINOCO RIVER.

On the banks of the Orinoco, Raleigh and his company feasted on pine-apples and other luscious fruits, and made acquaintance with the armadillo and many other strange creatures. At the junction of the Caroni, a southern tributary, with the Orinoco, Raleigh left the main stream, and ascended the branch to the great cataract which stopped his further progress. Raleigh’s description of the great cataract and the adjoining country may be given as a fair specimen of his literary style:—

“When we ran to the tops of the first hills of the plains adjoining to the river, we beheld the wonderful breach of the waters which ran down Caroni, and might from that mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, above twenty miles off, and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every one as high over the other as a church tower, which fell with that fury that the rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been all covered over with a great shower of rain; and in some places we took it at the first for a smoke that had risen over some great town. For mine own part I was well persuaded from thence to have returned, being a very ill footman, but the rest were so desirous to go near the said strange thunder of waters, that they drew me on, little by little, till we came into the next valley, where we might better discern the same. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more lively prospects; hills so raised here and there over the valleys, the river winding into divers branches, the plains adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, the ground of hard sand, easy to march on, either for horse or foot; the deer crossing in every path, the birds towards the evening singing on every tree, with a thousand several tunes, cranes and herons, of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the river’s side, the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind, and every stone that we stopped to take up promised either gold or silver by his complexion.”

The expedition was not equipped with geologists’ hammers or prospecting tools, but they nevertheless collected, and Sir Walter brought home, a number of specimens, that he thought auriferous quartz richly charged with gold. The white quartz brought home did contain gold, but in such infinitesimal proportion as not to be worth extracting.

The friendly Indians, with whom Sir Walter had much familiar intercourse, finding that he “with greedy ear devoured up their discourse,” entertained him with many wondrous recitals—of pronounced Munchausen flavour—concerning the gold and gems with which the country abounded, and of the wonders in anthropology and natural history that he would meet with, if he went a little farther on. These included tribes of Indians away west, whose eyes were on their shoulders, and their mouths below where their necks should be. In another direction he would meet with men with heads of the form and fit-on of dogs, who spent the day in the sea, and who spoke the Caril language. Sir Walter, to do him justice, does not state that he saw or heard of any of these marvels, except by report at second-hand. It should be remembered, too, that the recitals, reaching Raleigh through interpreters, probably very indifferently qualified, exposed them to the risk of distortion and misapprehension, and conduced to exaggeration rather than accuracy.

The great cataract on the Caroni was the farthest point reached by Raleigh in this exploration. He and his party had now been away from the fleet for about a month. He gave up the hope of reaching Manoa; and the terrific violence of the tropical rains, the sudden floods to which the rivers were subject, and the general aspect of affairs, admonished him to return to the ships with the utmost possible speed. They were carried down at a tremendous pace, without need to use sail or oar. At Morequito, Raleigh had a grave, private conference with an ancient chief, Topiawari. Raleigh solemnly denounced Spain as the enemy and England as the friend of Guiana, and entered into an alliance with him, offensive and defensive, Topiawari to become the ally of England, which would in turn aid him against certain Indians who had given the chief grounds for complaint. The old chief and his people heartily assented, and urged Raleigh to proceed farther inland, if not to Manoa, to a rich city, Macureguari, about four days’ journey distant, where they would find many “statues of gold.” The prospect was tempting, but the adventurers had been, and were, suffering severe privations, and Raleigh determined to hasten back. He exchanged hostages with the chief, engaging to return next year; he took with him the chiefs son, and left with the chief Goodwin, who learned the Indian language, and was found by Raleigh, on his revisiting the country many years later, when Goodwin had almost forgotten the English language.

In the course of their descent of the Orinoco, the adventurers visited a lake where they met with the curious creature, the manatee, or sea-cow. On an island in the Orinoco they had a feast, at which armadillo meat was the principal dainty. After encountering much violent weather in rain-floods, thunder-storms, and intermittent cold winds, they reached the sea. Notwithstanding bad water, scanty food, and weather hardships, only one life was lost in the course of the voyage, that of the young Indian who was devoured by the alligator.

During Raleigh’s absence, his fleet, under the command of Captain Amyas Preston, was active in spoiling the Spaniards, sacking and burning all the towns he could get at, in Venezuela. They were able to do much mischief, but to collect very little plunder. The visits of English captains had waked up the inhabitants to the propriety of preparing for their coming; they hid their most precious portable possessions away among the hills inland, or shipped them off to Spain for safety with the least possible delay. Among other towns devastated was Cumana, concerning which Captain Amyas Preston felt provoked to make the peevish complaint that he “found not the value of a single real of plate.”

Having accomplished all that his resources and circumstances made possible, and prepared the way for future operations, Raleigh brought back his little fleet to England in the autumn of 1595, making a quiet entrance into port,—Dartmouth or Falmouth,—that was in strong contrast with the pomp and circumstance, and noisy enthusiasm, that distinguished the return of Sir Francis Drake from his famous voyage. Raleigh’s spirited achievements do not seem to have been appreciated. He had, as he thought, returned bringing a gift to his queen of a rich empire that would assure his restoration to favour, but he was met with cold neglect, and left in doubt as to whether his report concerning Guiana was to be accepted as a true history or passed by as an idle tale. At this stage of his career he gave conclusive evidence of the diversity of his gifts, the wide range of his capability, his restless activity, and indomitable perseverance. He had distinguished himself as a practical navigator and commander, and as an explorer of regions before unknown. As a diplomatist he had established satisfactory relations with foreign potentates—albeit uncivilised—as allies; he had carried out with safety and success a perilous expedition, and had laid a good foundation for future operations. He had full confidence in his own ability to prosecute these operations successfully, and felt certain that evil and failure would result from his being supplanted, as he seemed to have reason to fear. Of himself and the Guiana chiefs he says: “I rather sought to win the kings than to sack them; I know what others will do when these kings come singly into their hands.”

No author of reputation, probably, who has written works which the world will not willingly let die,—works which have not died,—has done his literary work under greater disadvantages than Raleigh, or has enjoyed so little of the tranquillity of retirement, favourable to literary pursuits. It would appear from the date of publication, the end of the year 1595, that he must have been engaged in writing a book that became famous, while his expedition was actually in progress. In November he submitted a manuscript account of his Guiana voyage and travels, illustrated with a map, to Sir Robert Cecil. In a letter which accompanied it, he expresses his disappointment and surprise at the rejection of such a prize, as was never before offered to a Christian prince. In magnifying the value and importance of the acquisition within reach, he draws freely upon his imagination, and declares that the golden statues with which the city of Manoa abounds—which he has not seen—are worth at least £100,000 each! He urges that, whatever may be done about Guiana, or whoever may be sent to do it, the enterprise may not be soiled by cruelty, and plunder of the Indians. At the close of 1595 his work was published under the somewhat ponderous title, The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, and of the provinces of Emeria, Arromaia, Amapaia, and other countries, with their Rivers adjoining. The book became famous throughout Europe. Two editions were published in England in 1596, and a Latin translation in Germany. Raleigh’s literary contemporaries at this period included such illustrious men as Shakespeare, Bacon, Hooker, and Marlowe. His book on Guiana is admitted to occupy the foremost place among the volumes describing voyages and discoveries, that appeared towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, and has been republished in Hakluyt’s Voyages and Purchas’s Pilgrim.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
SAILOR, SCHOLAR, POET.
CHAPTER VI. NAVAL EXPEDITIONS—TRIAL AND EXECUTION.

The desirability of further crippling or arresting the reviving power of Spain, engaged the continued attention of the queen and her advisers, but there was much vacillation, on the part of the queen, with regard to actual operations. In 1596 a commission was appointed to act as a council of war, consisting of the Earl of Essex, Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral; Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lord Thomas Howard. Raleigh was treated with the highest consideration as an experienced and skilful naval authority. As Admiral of the Counties, he sent to the Council a valuable report on the defence of Cornwall and Devon. He was appointed collector of levies for a projected hostile expedition to Cadiz. In the prosecution of this work he displayed robust activity, recruiting all round the southern and south-eastern coasts, flitting about from place to place between Plymouth, Dover, Gravesend, and Blackwall as occasion required. On 1st June 1596, the forces collected put to sea, and on the 20th cast anchor in the Bay of San Sebastian. The English fleet, in four divisions, comprised 93 ships; an auxiliary Dutch squadron numbered 24 additional. The combined fleet had on board about 13,000 English soldiers and sailors, and 2600 Dutchmen.

RALEIGH AS SAILOR, SCHOLAR, POET.

This English Armada of 1596 was the “return match” for the “most happy and invincible Armada” of Philip of Spain, that visited, and was for the most part scattered, upon our shores in 1588. The English force, although very imposing, was much smaller than the array which Spain had made. As has been stated, the combined fleet consisted of 117 ships, carrying 15,600 men. The Spanish Armada embraced 130 ships, some of them of enormous size, carrying about 30,000 men all told, including “124 volunteers of quality, and 180 monks.” The Spanish expedition attracted the flower of the nobility of the nation, and the English Armada, in like manner, enlisted the sympathy, fired the patriotism, and inflamed the martial ardour of the flower of English chivalry. The most distinguished men in both arms of the service accompanied the expedition. Even amongst such associates in council and comrades in arms, Sir Walter Raleigh came to the front simply by his native force and merits; even in such a galaxy he shone the bright particular star—he was pre-eminently the hero of the expedition.

At the beginning of the battle of Cadiz, Raleigh, in compliance with the orders of the lord admiral, detached the ships under his charge and the Dutch squadron from the main body, and took up a favourable position for preventing the escape of Spanish ships from Cadiz harbour. He was directed to watch, but not to fight unless attacked. Lord Howard and the impetuous Essex, Raleigh being absent from their council, determined to open the action by military, in preference to naval operations—to land the soldiers and assault the town, leaving the Spanish fleet alone for the time. Raleigh detected in this a false and dangerous move, and despite his being a subordinate in command, interposed with promptitude and courage. He came up with Essex in the Repulse, when the embarkation of the soldiers was actually in progress. There was a heavy sea running, making the landing an enterprise to be attended with extreme difficulty and danger. He warmly remonstrated with Essex, and declared that this course imperilled their own lives, and risked the utter overthrow and ruin of the whole expedition. Essex deferred to Raleigh’s superior experience, judgment, and ability, and shifted the responsibility for the movement to the lord admiral, to whom, on board the Ark Royal, Raleigh immediately repaired,—now that he had boldly declared himself,—warmly supported by the highest military officers of the expedition. Lord Howard was converted to Raleigh’s views, which were in favour of immediate and vigorous action, but on a different plan. From his own ship, the War Sprite, Raleigh wrote a hurried letter to Lord Howard, advising the order of battle, which included the attack by well-manned boats upon the Spanish galleons, before they could be set on fire. Raleigh was at his best in this crisis. He bore himself with graceful courtesy towards his colleagues of the Council, and commanded, by his manifest grasp of the situation, his skill, intrepidity, and genius for rapid and vigorous action, their respect and admiration. Each of the four heads of the force was eager to lead the van, but they generously conceded the post of honour to Raleigh. Their final council before the action was held late on the evening of June 20th. Cadiz was illuminated, and its inhabitants carousing, and in the full enjoyment, as they supposed, of perfect security. At daybreak on the 21st June, the splendid English fleet swept into the harbour of Cadiz. Raleigh led in the War Sprite, followed by Sir George Carew in the Mary Rose, Sir Francis Vere in the Rainbow, Sir Robert Southwell in the Lion, Sir Conyers Clifford in the Dreadnought, and another ship, the six being a considerable distance in advance of the main body of the fleet. In front of them, under the walls of Cadiz, were seventeen galleons that were the special objects of attack. The forts and galleys opened fire upon the invading squadron, making a target of the leading War Sprite. Raleigh answered them not by shot from his guns, but, in contempt, by blasts from his trumpets. In his account of the action, he says that “the St. Philip, the great and famous ship of Spain, was the mark I shot at, esteeming those galleys but as wasps.” The St. Philip had a special claim upon his attention. It was the St. Philip and the St. Andrew that had been the principal actors in what Raleigh considered the murder of his gallant friend and companion-in-arms, Sir Richard Grenville, who in the fight at the Azores in 1591, in his ship the Revenge, with a hundred men, faced in battle, and was crushed by, a Spanish fleet, manned by fifteen thousand soldiers and sailors. Raleigh was determined to avenge the death of his gallant friend and kinsman, or to perish in the attempt. He came to anchor close to the galleons, and for three hours the battle raged with great fury. Raleigh’s ship was suffering severely, and he became impatient from the delay in the arrival of the boats. He put on his skiff, and urged first Essex and afterwards the admiral to make every possible effort to bring up the boats. During this short parley, and Raleigh’s absence from his ship, some of the other commanders, especially Sir Francis Vere in the Rainbow, had attempted to supplant the War Sprite. Vere, the marshal, had a rope attached from his own to Raleigh’s ship, to haul the Rainbow abreast of the leader. On Raleigh’s discovering this, he ordered the rope to be thrown off, and for the remainder of the fight the Rainbow, excepting a small part of the bows, was covered by the War Sprite. In Sir Walter’s spirited description of the action, he says:—

“Having no hope of my fly-boats to board, and the earl and my Lord Thomas having both promised to second me, I laid out a warp by the side of the Philip to shake hands with her, for with the wind we could not get aboard; which, when she and the rest perceived, finding also that the Repulse, seeing mine, began to do the like, and the rear-admiral my Lord Thomas, they all let slip, and ran aground, tumbling into the sea heaps of soldiers, as thick as if coals had been poured out of a sack in many ports at once, some drowned, and some sticking in the mud. The Philip and the St. Thomas burned themselves; the St. Matthew and the St. Andrew were recovered by our boats ere they could get out to fire them. The spectacle was very lamentable on their side; for many drowned themselves; many, half burned, leaped into the water; very many hanging by the ropes’ end, by the ships’ side, under the water even to the lips; many swimming with grievous wounds, stricken, under water, and put out of their pain; and withal so huge a fire, and such tearing of the ordnance in the great Philip and the rest when the fire came to them, as if a man had a desire to see hell itself, it was there most lively figured. Ourselves spared the lives of all after the victory, but the Flemings, who did little or nothing in the fight, used merciless slaughter, till they were by myself, and afterwards by my lord admiral, beaten off.”

In the action Raleigh received a serious wound in the leg, his flesh was torn by splinters, which disabled him from taking part in the land attack. Although his wound was excessively painful, he was unwilling to be left behind, and had himself carried into Cadiz on a litter. But a town in process of being sacked by soldiers freed from discipline and restraint, grievously hurt as he was, and suffering the agony he did, was no place for him, and he was speedily carried back to the War Sprite. Early next morning, however, eager in spirit although physically unfit for arduous duty, he went ashore again, and entreated for leave to follow a fleet of richly-laden Spanish carracks, Indian bound, that had escaped. The disturbance and excitement attending the operations on land, prevented attention being given to Raleigh’s request. In the interim of his waiting for authority, the Spanish commander, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, settled the matter by burning the whole fleet of rich argosies. Raleigh had the mortification of witnessing the conflagration from the deck of the War Sprite. Of the large fleet of Spain that had been completely defeated, only two ships, the St. Matthew and the St. Andrew, remained for the victors to take home as prizes to England.

ENGLISH FLEET BEFORE CADIZ.

Neither the lord admiral nor his colleagues on the Council concerned themselves about sending home information about their proceedings. A letter written by Raleigh to Cecil, dated 7th July, and taken home by Sir Anthony Ashley, was the first news received in England of the victory. An epidemic broke out in Raleigh’s ship, which could not be effectively dealt with, and it was determined, 1st August, that he should return with his ship to England, in company with two other ships of the fleet. He arrived at Plymouth in six days. On the 12th he landed at Weymouth, and proceeded to Sherborne for the rest and nursing of which he stood so sorely in need. The remainder of the fleet returned a few weeks later. Essex on the way home landed and pounced upon the magnificent library of the Bishop of Algarve. He presented it to Sir Thomas Bodley, to form the nucleus of the famous Bodleian Library, which remaineth at Oxford until this day.

Of such glory as attached to the destruction of the Spanish fleet, Sir Walter Raleigh was entitled to the chief share. There was much plunder, great destruction and loss of property, but little or no prize money resulted from the great victory. The “Council of Four” agreed that if the property available for prize money realised as much, the lord admiral and Essex should have £5000 each, and Raleigh £3000; subordinate officers and men according to the amount that the treasure would “pan out.” The Earl of Essex gallantly assigned his share to his venerable and royal lady, but he might have saved himself the trouble, for “the good Queen Bess,” without consultation, or “by’r leave,” scooped up the whole. She further blamed the victorious chiefs of the expedition for having failed to bring home the Indian carracks, and adding to her coffers the treasure with which they were laden! Raleigh did all he could to procure restoration to favour, but the queen continued relentless towards him.

Raleigh’s hope and expectation of achieving credit and renown to himself, and adding to the glory of his country, in connection with “the large, rich, and beautiful empire of Guiana,” had slumbered while other active enterprises engaged his energies, but they were now revived. Towards the close of 1596 he sent out another expedition to Guiana, under Captain Berrie, who brought back in the summer of 1597 a glowing confirmation of Raleigh’s favourable report. About this time he was received again at court, and appears to have been on the most friendly terms with Sir Robert Cecil and the Earl of Essex.

Essex, high in authority, with the assent of the queen, it may be supposed, and of the Privy Council and chiefs of the services, designed another expedition against Spain, and needed Raleigh’s assistance, which was heartily given. He fully approved the object, as may be inferred from his Spanish Alarum, which he wrote expressly to stimulate and warn the Government against its old enemy. He felt assured that as soon as Philip should think his power sufficient, he would attempt reprisals for the crushing losses and humiliating indignities that had been inflicted upon him in the face of the world. Raleigh was decidedly of opinion that it would be best not to wait Philip’s coming, but to go to him at home, or on the high seas. Restored to power, Raleigh proceeded energetically to victual and equip a powerful fleet. The Dutch contributed a contingent of twelve ships. On the night of Sunday, 10th July 1597, the fleet sailed from the rendezvous in Plymouth Sound, but soon got separated by a violent storm. Some of the ships were lost; the others got back as they could to Falmouth, Plymouth, and Tor Bay. On 18th August the fleet again put to sea. The St. Andrew and the St. Matthew, Spanish prizes, revisiting their native shores as enemies, were disabled in the Bay of Biscay, and had to be left at La Rochelle. Raleigh’s ship also sustained an accident, which required his detention for repairs off Lisbon. Essex left directions for Raleigh to hasten after him to the Azores. Raleigh rejoined the main fleet under Essex at Flores, on the 15th September. A pinnace from India, fallen in with, gave the news that the homeward-bound Spanish fleet was changing its course this year. The English fleet was, in consequence of this information, and as the decision of a council of war, divided, and the ships of the fleet assigned their several posts. Fayal was to be taken by Essex and Raleigh, the other islands by different appointed commanders. Essex sailed first, leaving Raleigh taking in provisions at Flores. Essex, after he had left, sent a letter to Raleigh to come on at once to Fayal, and do his victualling there. Raleigh had completed his work, and sailed at midnight; he had perhaps a better ship than Essex, or could handle it better, and thus headed his superior. When Raleigh arrived at Fayal with the War Sprite and the Dreadnought, Essex had not come up. The inhabitants immediately began to construct defensive works, and to remove their most valuable effects inland. Raleigh waited, chafing insufferably with impatience, for three days. On the fourth day his patience was exhausted; he leaped into a boat at the head of a storming party, and scaled the cliffs. The Spaniards contested every foot of the road, but were completely defeated, and Raleigh at the head of his four hundred and fifty men, entered Fayal, a “town full of fine gardens, orchards, and wells of delicate waters, with fair streets, and one very fair church.”

Next morning Essex came creeping into the harbour. Raleigh went out to meet and greet him. The impetuous earl felt mortified, doubtless, at having been forestalled and eclipsed, and as he had those about him envious of Raleigh, they would do what they could to inflame his anger. Essex reproved Raleigh for breach of orders and articles, and intimated that by taking Fayal without authority he had rendered himself liable to the punishment of death. Raleigh defended himself, and claimed that authority for what he had done had been given to him by the queen’s letters patent. A reconciliation for the present was patched up, and the fleet proceeded to St. Miguel, Raleigh being left to watch the roadstead, in which he had not been posted long, ere an Indian carrack of 1600 tons, laden with spices, unsuspectingly sailed into what it took for a friendly Spanish fleet. Raleigh, at the head of a party, made a prompt attempt to seize the vessel, but its commander ran her ashore, enabled his crew to land, and set the ship on fire. It was totally destroyed; he took, however, another carrack laden with cochineal. Nothing else notable distinguished the voyage, in which Raleigh, although not the highest in authority, was incontestably the most prominent, active, and successful in action. He came home in October, with his health greatly disordered and his strength much impaired.

In 1598, Raleigh resumed his duties at court as Captain of the Guard. Although his office brought him into personal contact with the queen, and he had well proved his loyalty and valour, these claims failed to benefit him. Essex had never been as patient and painstaking in serving and endeavouring to please the queen as Raleigh had been, yet nothing he might have asked from her in reason would have been denied him; but to the faithful Raleigh she would give nothing. He desired the office of Vice-Chamberlain, which had become vacant; he thought it not unreasonable that he should be raised to the peerage; he would have been a very fit man to have been made Lord Deputy of Ireland; but from all these offices he was excluded, and Cecil, his professed friend, prevented him from being sworn on the Privy Council. Life at court became unpleasant from the jarring and bad blood that prevailed. Essex had been so far left to himself as to personally insult the queen, whose conditions he declared were “as crooked as her carcass.” True friendship had never existed between Essex and Raleigh, and their relations did not improve by closer contact,—very much the reverse; their dislike grew into hate. About this time Raleigh formed another friendship that was to have much to do in effecting his ruin. This dangerous friend was Henry Brooke, afterwards Lord Cobham, Lady Cecil’s brother, who, with his brother, George Brooke, were the champions of Arabella Stuart, cousin of James I., daughter of Charles Stuart, a younger brother of Darnley, whom they conspired to support by secret intrigues as heir to the throne. Raleigh got unwittingly entangled with them, to his ultimate, although long-deferred, ruin. The closeness of his intimacy with Cobham may be inferred from the following letter, of date—

“Bath, April 29, 1600.

“Here we attend you and have done this se’enight, and we still mourn your absence, the rather that we fear your mind is changed. I pray let us hear from you at least, for if you come not we will go hereby home, and make but short tarrying here. My wife will despair ever to see you in these parts, if your Lordship come not now. We can but long for you and wish you as our own lives whatsoever.—Your Lordship’s everest faithful, to honour you most.

W. Raleigh.”

At intervals Raleigh did much good work in connection with his offices as Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Warden of the Stannaries; affairs in Ireland also engaged much of his attention.

Sir Anthony Paulet, Governor of Jersey, died in August 1600, and Raleigh was appointed his successor. He “entered into residence” in October, Lady Raleigh and their little son Walter, now six years old, witnessing his departure from Weymouth. As Governor he discharged his duties with a breadth of view and a spirit of enterprise not often manifested by such officials. From considerations of policy his first intention was to destroy the castle of Mont Orgueil, but he was not an iconoclast; its stately architecture and commanding position so charmed him as to induce him to appoint a military guard for its preservation. He established a trade communication for interchange of products between Jersey and Newfoundland. In many ways he lightened the burdens and improved the condition of the people, whom he ruled with wisdom, justice, and beneficence.

Essex was tried and executed in 1601. The friends of Essex stigmatised Raleigh. A trap was laid for him by Sir Christopher Blount and others, who attempted, but unsuccessfully, to assassinate Raleigh when he kept an appointment on the river, off Durham House, to which they lured him. Four shots were fired at him from a boat manned by Blount and some of Essex’s servants. Raleigh escaped unhurt. Blount confessed having taken part in this treachery, and on the scaffold asked pardon from Raleigh, which was freely granted. Touching his enmity with Essex, Raleigh states that he “shed tears for him when he died. I confess I was of a contrary faction, but I knew he was a noble gentleman. Those that set me up against him, did afterwards set themselves against me.”

ST. HELIER, JERSEY.

In 1601, Raleigh had much trouble in connection with Meeres, bailiff of the Sherborne estates, who was first aggressive and overbearing, and when brought to account, insolent, malicious, and audacious; clever enough to make much mischief, and cause his abused employer much vexation and annoyance. He made himself amenable to the law, and confessed that he had wrongously maligned Sir Walter. He was pardoned, but pardon was not followed by repentance, and he continued as vicious and troublesome as before.

In September 1601, Henry IV. of France being at Calais, sent a complimentary embassy, consisting of the Duke de Biron and a large and brilliant retinue, to pay respect to Queen Elizabeth. The queen was not in London at the time, and the remnant of her court left behind were unequal to the duty of fitly entertaining the French chevaliers. Raleigh happened, most opportunely, to pay a visit to London, and exercised his accomplishments to good purpose in the entertainment of the distinguished visitors, whom he escorted to Westminster, and to the Bear Garden by way of variety. After “doing London,” he accompanied the party, “by royal command,” to Hampshire, where the queen was the guest of the Marquis of Worcester. In anticipation of the visit, and by the queen’s desire, Raleigh wrote to Lord Cobham to join him, and assist in entertaining the visitors. Raleigh’s letters to Cobham show that they were on terms of intimate friendship.

In November the Duke of Lennox visited London, with a delicate diplomatic commission from James of Scotland touching the succession to the English throne. Amongst others he saw Raleigh and Cobham, both of whom he found unfavourable to the claims of the Scottish king. In the complications which resulted from this important question of State policy, Cecil, never a warm friend of Raleigh, became more unfriendly and even hostile, and accused him of ingratitude.

In 1602, Raleigh sent out commissioners to look after, and, if possible, more firmly settle the colony of Virginia, which had now occupied his attention for above a dozen years. His representatives were his nephew, Bartholomew Gilbert, Captain Gosnoll, and Samuel Mace. No definite results followed their expeditions, beyond their supplying a link establishing Raleigh’s claim to be the founder of the still inchoate colony. At home Raleigh devoted his time and attention to the discharge of his numerous and onerous official duties. He was at this time in poor health, very depressed in spirits, and pestered by legal proceedings taken by his dismissed steward Meeres, with whom Lord Thomas Howard, now Lord Howard of Bindon, Raleigh’s brother commander in the Cadiz expedition, meanly and maliciously conspired. Towards the close of 1602, Raleigh had what has been supposed his last interview with Queen Elizabeth, who asked for his counsel with respect to Irish affairs. He advised that the leaders of the malcontents should be treated with rigorous severity. In the same year he sold his great estates in Ireland to Boyle, Earl of Cork. Queen Elizabeth died 30th March 1603. The loss of his protector and patroness was to Raleigh ruinous and irreparable. His career up to this point—he was now fifty-one years of age—had not been distinguished by unclouded sunshine,—henceforth it was to be marked by unrelieved gloom. Of his well-earned title to honour and fame he could not be wholly stripped, but it was in the power of his enemies to deprive him of offices, property, peace, and other conditions that made life worth living. He entered now upon his decline and fall.

King James received Raleigh roughly, and at once superseded him as Captain of the Guard; Cecil was raised to the peerage as a mark of favour. In May 1603, Raleigh, in terms of a royal warrant, was required to surrender Durham House to the Bishop of Durham. He had expended large sums upon the “rotten house” to which, as was now stated, he had “no right.” The order to quit was most arbitrary and unjust. He had received no notice, and was required in the space of a few days to clear out his retinue of forty persons and twenty horses, with the provision laid in for them.

James was favourable to Spain and the Catholics; Raleigh never repressed or concealed his hostility to both. Raleigh became involved with Lord Cobham and George Brooke, brothers-in-law of Cecil, in an alleged treasonable plot, the lines and objects of which it would be difficult to define. Raleigh was arrested on 17th July, and immured in the Tower on the information of his dastardly and dangerous friend, Lord Cobham, the Judas who should have been consigned to the dungeon, in place of his too confiding and credulous friend. In his depression and desperation he attempted suicide. Anticipating death, he wrote an extremely touching letter to his wife:—

“Receive from thy unfortunate husband,” he writes, “these last lines.... That I can live never to see thee and my child more! I cannot! I have desired God and disputed with my reason, but nature and compassion have the victory. That I can live to think how you are both left a spoil to my enemies, and that my name shall be a dishonour to my child! I cannot!... Unfortunate woman, unfortunate child, comfort yourselves, trust God, and be contented with your poor estate. I would have bettered it, if I had enjoyed a few years.

“What will my poor servants think, at their return, when they hear I am accused to be Spanish, who sent them, at my great charge, to plant and discover upon his territory! O God! O intolerable infamy!... For the rest I commend me to thee, and thee to God, and the Lord knows my sorrow to part from thee and my poor child, and let him know his father was no traitor. Be bold of my innocence, for God—to whom I offer life and soul—knows it.... And the Lord for ever keep thee and give thee comfort in both worlds.”

On 21st September, Raleigh, Cobham, and George Brooke were indicted at Staines. The charge was “of exciting rebellion against the king, and raising one Arabella Stuart to the crown of England.” This Arabella Stuart was first cousin to James, being the daughter of Charles Stuart, fifth Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s elder brother. Raleigh’s bitter enemy, Lord Thomas Howard, afterwards Lord Howard of Bindon, and yet again created Earl of Suffolk, had powerful influence amongst the higher powers, and exercised his influence virulently against Raleigh to the full extent of his power. Raleigh was repeatedly examined, and on Thursday, 17th November 1603, put upon his trial before a Court of King’s Bench, the court-room having been fitted up in the old episcopal palace at Winchester. Lord Chief Justice Popham presided, and had with him on the bench as commissioners, Sir Robert Cecil, Sir W. Wood, the Earl of Devonshire, and Howard of Bindon, Earl of Suffolk, with judges Anderson, Gawdy, and Warburton. Sir Edward Coke, Attorney-General, prosecuted, with Serjeant Hale as his “junior.”

The indictment against Raleigh was in effect—

That he did conspire, and go about to deprive the king of his government, to raise up sedition within the realm, to alter religion, to bring in the Roman superstition, and to procure foreign enemies to invade the kingdom. That the Lord Cobham, the 9th of June last, did meet with the said Sir Walter Raleigh in Durham House, in the parish of St. Martins in the Fields, and then and there had conference with him, how to advance Arabella Stuart to the crown and royal throne of this kingdom, and that then and there it was agreed that Cobham should treat with Aremberg, ambassador from the Archduke of Austria, and obtain of him 600,000 crowns to bring to pass the intended treasons. It was agreed that Cobham should go to Albert the Archduke to procure him to advance the pretended title of Arabella, from thence, knowing that Albert had not sufficient means to maintain his own army in the Low Countries, Cobham should go to Spain to procure the king to assist and further her pretended title.

It was agreed, the better to effect all this conspiracy, that Arabella should write three letters, one to the Archduke, another to the King of Spain, and a third to the Duke of Savoy, and promise three things: first, to establish a firm peace between England and Spain; secondly, to tolerate the popish and Roman superstition; thirdly, to be ruled by them in contracting of her marriage.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH CONFINED IN THE TOWER.

And for the effecting these traitorous purposes, Cobham should return by the Isle of Jersey, and should there find Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain of the said isle, and take counsel of him for the distributing the aforesaid crowns, as the occasion or discontentment of the subjects should give cause and way.

That Raleigh must be found guilty was a foregone conclusion. The trial was a cruel mockery of the accused; a flagrant outrage upon the spirit, even the mere name, of justice. One of the judges at least—Gawdy—confessed on his death-bed that the procedure had violated and “degraded the justice of England.” Coke attacked the apparently deserted and friendless defendant with uncontrollable ferocity, with a shameless abuse of his office. Instead of attempting to prove his case by admissible evidence and legitimate arguments, he discharged upon the defendant a torrent of coarse invective, that was utterly disgraceful in the public prosecutor in a State trial. His case was doubtless aggravated by the feeling that the man whom he was privileged with permission to abuse was his superior, and bore himself with a self-command and dignity of demeanour that Coke could appreciate in another, but to which it was not given to himself to attain.

The sole evidence(?) against Raleigh consisted of the alleged declarations of persons with whom he was not confronted, as he demanded to be. Coke, in successive speeches, denounced the defendant with insensate rage, and in disgustingly clumsy phrases, as the “notoriousest traitor,” the “vilest viper,” the “absolutest traitor that ever came to the bar.” Raleigh had great difficulty in obtaining a hearing, in checking the rushing stream of violent abuse. “You try me,” said he, “as by the Spanish Inquisition, if you proceed only by the circumstances, without two witnesses.” He pleaded that “by the statute law and by God’s word it was required that there be two witnesses. Bear me if I ask for only one; the common law is my support in this. Call my accuser before my face, and I have done. All I hear against me is but this accusation of Cobham. Which of his accusations has he subscribed to or avouched?” Cobham, it appears, had made eight different confessions, each conflicting in some points, or varying from all the others. Coke’s answer to Raleigh’s reasonable plea was to heap more violent, utterly irrelevant abuse upon him,—“Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived. I will make it appear that there never lived a viler viper on the face of the earth than thou. I want words to express sufficiently thy viperous treasons.” “You want words, indeed,” interposed Raleigh, “for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times; you speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and uncivilly.”

Raleigh defended himself with signal ability, but in vain. Popham summed up strongly against him, and the packed jury found him guilty. The rumours in circulation against Raleigh had been accepted, and before the trial popular fury raged against him. The effect of the trial, the cruel, crushing injustice with which he was treated, caused a reaction in his favour. So gross and palpable was the injustice done to him, that even in the High Court, Popham was hissed and Coke was hooted, by the portion of the public present during the proceedings. The revolting terms of the sentence are too hideous to be recited. Many weary years elapsed between Raleigh’s sentence and his execution.

A number of persons really concerned in the conspiracy were tried and condemned about the same time as Raleigh, and were executed. The execution of others, including Raleigh, was stayed by the king, although Raleigh had no knowledge of this. The Bishop of Winchester, who was appointed to prepare him for execution, gave him no hope. Believing himself at death’s door, he wrote a touching farewell letter to his wife, in which he says:—

“Know it, dear wife, that your son is the child of a true man, and who, in his own respect, despiseth death and all his misshapen and ugly forms. I cannot write much. God knows how hardly I stole this time, when all sleep; and it is time to separate my thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, which living was denied you; and either lay it at Sherborne, if the land continue yours, or in Exeter Church, by my father and mother. I can write no more. Time and death call me away.”

From Wolvesley Castle, in which Raleigh was confined after his trial, he was, after having received the announcement that his life was not to be taken, removed to the Tower of London on the 16th December 1603, and remained there a State prisoner for twelve years. He, of course, lost his various offices and sources of income, excepting Sherborne, which was coveted and greedily desired by court favourites and others. Ultimately the estate was taken by the king, and £8000 paid as purchase-money for the benefit of Lady Raleigh and her children. Many of Raleigh’s voluminous writings were composed during the period of his confinement in the Tower.

The queen, who made the acquaintance of Raleigh about the year 1606, was very favourably disposed towards him, as was also Prince Henry, a most promising prince, who became warmly attached to the illustrious prisoner, and would probably have been successful in obtaining his release, had he been spared. He obtained from the king, indeed, a promise of Raleigh’s release, but died before the stipulated date had arrived. Influence on Raleigh’s behalf continued to be used with the king, who at last gave way to the importunities of the captive’s friends, and a warrant for his release from the Tower was signed by James on the 30th January 1616.

An express condition involved in Raleigh’s liberation was that he should proceed at once to undertake preparations for, and to personally conduct, another expedition to Guiana. This he set about with promptitude and energy, investing in it the whole of what remained of his fortune. Raleigh and his friends contributed to the enterprise an aggregate of about £15,000. Raleigh was by royal commission appointed commander of the expedition, which consisted of the Destiny, of 440 tons, which was built under Raleigh’s personal direction, and six smaller vessels.

The fleet sailed in March 1617. It could not be regarded with hopeful confidence. Raleigh’s description of the personnel of the expedition is decidedly unsatisfactory. “A company of volunteers who for the most part had neither seen the sea nor the wars; who, some forty gentlemen excepted, were the very scum of the world, drunkards, blasphemers, and such others as their fathers, brothers, and friends thought it an exceeding good gain to be discharged of, with the hazard of some thirty, forty, or fifty pound.” Raleigh was commander of the fleet, and his son Walter captain of the Destiny. Various delays occurred. On the 12th June the fleet left Plymouth, but soon got separated by stormy weather, and some of the ships turned back to Falmouth. The fleet reassembled in Cork harbour, and remained there waiting for a favourable wind for nearly six weeks. While thus detained, Raleigh disposed as completely as possible, and on the best terms he could command, of his remaining Irish leases and other interests in Ireland. The fleet called at the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands. After encountering much rough weather, they sighted, on the 11th November, Cape Orange, the most northerly point of the coast of Brazil; on the 14th they anchored at the mouth of the Cayenne River; and Raleigh, who had been struck down by fever, was conveyed from the choky cabin to his barge. From this place he writes to Lady Raleigh: “To tell you I might be here King of the Indians were a vanity; but my name hath still lived among them. Here they feed me with fresh meat and all that the country yields; all offer to obey me. Commend me to poor Carew, my son.” Here, also, Goodwin, the English lad left as exchange hostage on the occasion of his first visit, twenty-two years before, came to do homage to his old master. He was voluble in the Indian tongue, but had almost lost ability to express himself in English.

The state of his health incapacitated Raleigh from conducting the expedition on the Orinoco and searching for the expected mines of the precious metals—gold more especially. He despatched a party under the command of Captain Keymis; his son Walter, and George Raleigh, his nephew, accompanied the expedition. Its result was disastrous. Keymis attacked a Spanish settlement—San Thomé; and young Walter Raleigh lost his life in the fight. Keymis, with a remnant of the men left with him, fled in the belief that a powerful Spanish force was in pursuit. When Raleigh and Keymis met, the admiral was severe in his reproof, and required from him such explanation of his conduct as he could give for the satisfaction of His Majesty and the State. Keymis, in great dejection, committed suicide. The crews mutinied, and became quite unmanageable; and the ships returned, each as the crews could find their way, to English ports. On the 21st May, Raleigh in the Destiny reached Kinsale harbour, and on the 21st June arrived at Plymouth, infirm in body, broken in spirit, penniless, dejected, and destitute.

Intrigues against Raleigh were originated and stimulated by Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador. He was beset with spies, who ensnared him into acts and confessions—to be employed against him. Sir Lewis Stukely, a cousin of Raleigh, an infamous wretch, was the traitor of the miserable drama. Again the grand old man had to stand his trial; the charge now was, of having abused the king’s confidence by setting out to find gold in a mine which never existed, with instituting a piratical attack upon a peaceful Spanish settlement, with attempting to capture the Mexican Plate fleet, although he had been specially warned that he would take his life in his hands, if he committed any one of these three faults.

Raleigh was tried before the Commissioners on 22nd October. He denied having had any intention of stirring up war between England and Spain, and declared that he had confidently believed in the existence of the gold mine. He confessed that in case of his failing to find the mine, he would if he could have taken the Mexican fleet. At the close of the examination, Lord Francis Bacon, in the name of the commissioners, said that he was guilty of abusing the confidence of King James, and of injuring the subjects of Spain, and that he must prepare to die,—being already civilly dead. Execution was ordered upon the Winchester sentence of 1603. On the 28th October 1618 he was roused from his bed in the Tower, where he lay suffering from a severe attack of ague. The order of movement was so hurried that the barber remarked that his master had not had time to comb his head. “Let them comb it that are to have it,” said Raleigh. He had been brought first to Westminster Hall from the Tower, and from the Hall was taken to the Gate House. On the way he told his old friend, Sir Hugh Beeston, “to secure a good place at the show next morning, adding that he (Raleigh) was sure of one.” His cousin, Francis Thynne, suggested that he should be more serious, lest his enemies should report his levity. Raleigh rejoined, “It is my last mirth in this world, do not grudge it to me.” The good Dr. Tounson, Dean of Westminster, a stranger to Raleigh, was puzzled by his conduct, but confessed his admiration. After the execution, he reported “he was the most fearless of death he had ever known, and the most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and conscience.”

LORD FRANCIS BACON.

It was late, on the evening before the date fixed for execution, when Lady Raleigh knew that the end was so near. She hastened to the Gate House, and remained till midnight with her husband, from whom she had been so much parted involuntarily, and from whom she was to be so soon finally separated in this life.

In the morning the dean visited Raleigh in the Gate House, and administered the Eucharist. He ate a hearty breakfast, and smoked a pipe of tobacco. The servant brought him a cup of sack, and, after he had drunk, asked if the wine was to his liking. “I may answer you,” said Raleigh, “as the fellow did on his way to Tyburn. ‘It is good drink, if a man might stay by it.’” As they passed through the dense crowd that had assembled, Raleigh noticed a very old man bareheaded. He pulled off the rich laced cap that he was wearing, and, throwing it to the old man with the remark, “Friend, you need this more than I do,” passed on himself bareheaded.

On the scaffold he delivered an ingenious and eloquent speech that occupied nearly half an hour. At the windows of an adjacent house he noticed a number of noblemen and gentlemen with whom he had been connected in his foreign adventures, or associated in public affairs. Amongst others were the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, and Northampton. He seemed anxious that they should hear his vindication of his conduct, and apologised for the weakness of his voice, whereupon they came down, solemnly embraced him, and took their places around him on the scaffold. He prayed that the company might bear with him, because this was the third day of his fever, which might cause him to show weakness. “I thank God,” he said, “that He has sent me to die in the light and not in darkness. I also thank God that He has suffered me to die before such an assembly of honourable witnesses, and not obscurely in the Tower, where for the space of thirteen years together I have been oppressed with many miseries. And I return Him thanks that my fever hath not taken me at this time, as I prayed to Him that it might not, that I might clear myself of such accusations unjustly laid to my charge, and leave behind me the testimony of a true heart both to my king and country.”

His speech was ingenious and eloquent, and well fitted to move the sympathy of his hearers. He closed his address—

“And now I entreat that you will all join me in prayer to the great God of heaven, whom I have grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, who has lived a sinful life in such callings as have been most inducing to it; for I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice; that His almighty goodness will forgive me, that He will cast away my sins, and that He will receive me into everlasting life.—So I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God.”

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,

Such heroes bring ye forth

As those from whom we came;

And plant our name

Under that star

Not known unto our north.”

A severe storm carried the fleet, which had sailed by way of the Canaries and the West India Islands, into the magnificent bay of Chesapeake. A noble river was soon entered, which was named after King James, and on the 13th May 1607, the peninsula of Jamestown was selected for the site of the colony. After many early struggles the colony became settled, and in 1619 a Legislature was constituted. The Church of England was established as the Church of Virginia. All persons were to frequent Divine service upon the Sabbath-days, both forenoon and afternoon. Penalties were appointed for idleness, gaming with dice or cards, and drunkenness. And excess in apparel was taxed in the church for all public contributions. Gradually the colony, which was nurtured by a most influential company in London, became settled, and it soon increased in prosperity.

The New England Colony was founded about the same period. A Puritan community in the north of England, being persecuted at home, fled to Amsterdam in 1608. Their minister, a man of high character and great ability, was John Robinson. The Dutch made them large offers to settle in their colonies, but the pilgrims were attached to their nationality as Englishmen, and to the language of their country. A secret, but deeply-seated love of country led them to the resolution of recovering the protection of their country, by enlarging her dominions. They resolved to make a settlement of their own. They at first thought of joining the colony of Virginia, but, after consultation with the English Government, religious liberty was refused them. At length they resolved to sail at their own hazard, and made ready for their departure from Leyden. The ships which they had provided—the Speedwell of 60 tons, and the Mayflower of 180 tons—could hold but a minority of the congregation, and Robinson was therefore detained at Leyden; while Brewster, the governing elder, conducted “such of the youngest and strongest as freely offered themselves.” There were solemn instructions given them, and there was much prayer. They soon reached Southampton, and on the 5th August 1620 sailed from thence for America. The Speedwell put back, as unfit for the voyage, and the Mayflower at length, on 6th September, set sail alone with 102 on board,—men, women, and children,—without any warrant from King James. After a boisterous voyage of sixty-three days they cast anchor in the harbour of Cape Cod. Before they landed they formed themselves into a body politic by a solemn voluntary compact “to frame such just and equal laws as shall be thought most convenient,” and they pledged themselves to submission and obedience. They had to encounter terrible difficulties in seeking for a secure harbour, in the midst of a cold and stormy winter; but at length, on 11th December, they chose a spot, which they called Plymouth. When a body of Indians was discovered hovering near, the colony assumed a military organisation, with Miles Standish as the captain. Again in April the Mayflower sailed for Europe; and in autumn new emigrants arrived. In the summer the bay of Massachusetts and harbour of Boston were explored. The supply of bread was scanty; but, at their rejoicing together after the harvest, the colonists had great quantities of wildfowl and venison. They had many difficulties, but conquered them all, and soon became a strong, free community, of high moral character and devoted piety, though intolerant in some of their laws, according to the spirit of the age. They became a centre of attraction to many of the Puritans in England, and their number thus increased rapidly. This colony laid the basis of the principles of the United States constitution,—adopted a century and a half later. It was the true foundation of the great American nation.

OLIVER CROMWELL AND THE SEA-POWER OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER VIII. A LONG INTERVAL IN NAVAL WARFARE ENDED.

Cromwell, with his great grasp of mind, saw at once the vast importance of the English navy, which, during the civil wars, had been neglected, and bent all his energies, not only to make it effective, but to give it the supreme command of the seas. The Dutch had become, through the long discords in England, the great traders of the world; they now aimed at nothing less than securing naval supremacy. It was this that brought about the fierce conflict between the two nations, both Protestant, and both at the time liberal,—which lasted for several years. The Dutch were unwilling to pay deference to the English Commonwealth by showing the wonted respect to the English flag in British waters. They probably thought that England was almost defunct as a sea-power, and they knew little the ruler with whom they had to deal. Cromwell had ulterior views, as to crushing the religious despotism which, with Spain as its chief instrument, had been long attempting to stamp out all Christian liberty. He could not proceed, however, with his plans, while Holland lay behind him as a possible enemy. Had the Dutch taken at the time a statesmanlike view of the position, they would have hailed the English Commonwealth as fighting the very battle which they themselves had fought,—and there might then have been a union of the naval forces of the two nations, for the good of the world, as afterwards, in the time of William III. But the Dutch looked only to their passing commercial interests. It was they that, by their exhibition of contempt for the English flag, originated the war. The battles during this war were about the fiercest ever fought on the seas. The result seemed uncertain for a time, but in the end England gained the day, and Holland had to succumb. Then, with Holland powerless, Cromwell was free to carry out his great policy, as to Spain and the Catholic powers. The navy entered the Mediterranean, where England had before no position at all, and swept everything before it, under its brave and godly commander, Blake, who felt, as did Cromwell, that he was fighting the universal battle of liberty of conscience. When Piedmont massacred numbers of her subjects, belonging to the ancient Vaudois Church, in the Alpine valleys, Cromwell was in a position, through his navy in the Mediterranean, to command the cessation of the persecution, and he thundered forth in the ears of astonished Europe, by his immortal secretary John Milton, such threats as alarmed the whole array of persecutors, and compelled submission to his demands,—for England now commanded the seas, and could sweep the coast of Italy, and all Mediterranean territory. To the foresight and statesmanship of Oliver Cromwell, John Milton, and Robert Blake is due, in great part, the position which England has occupied ever since, as the leading maritime power of the world.