ILLUSTRATIONS 



1586 he introduced the potato into Great Britain 

 and is believed to have been the first English 

 gentleman to smoke tobacco. In 1591 he was 

 appointed second in command under Lord Thomas 

 Howard in the expedition to the Azores in that 

 year, but the Queen refused to let him go and 

 Sir Richard Grenville was appointed in his place. 

 Ralegh's account of the last fight of the * Revenge' 

 will be found in Hakluyt, Vol. VII., p. 38. In 



1592 he contributed very largely to the expedition 

 under Frobisher and Burgh which captured the 

 'Madre de Dios' (Hakluyt, Vol. VII., p. 105), but in 

 July of that year he was disgraced and imprisoned 

 in the Tower, but was released in October. In 



1593 he was returned to Parliament for Michael, in 

 Cornwall. In 1594 he sent Jacob Whiddon to ex- 

 plore the Orinoco, and early in 1595 he headed an 

 expedition to Guiana himself. He ascended the 

 Orinoco for about 450 miles in quest of the gold 

 mine of Manoa, but was unsuccessful in his search. 

 On his return to England he v/rote his *Discoverie 

 of Guiana' (Hakluyt, Vol. IX.). In June 1596 

 he commanded, with great distinction, the * War- 

 spite' in the Cadiz expedition and was severely 

 wounded. In 1597 he sailed, as second in com- 

 mand under Essex, to the Azores and took Fayal. 

 He was elected member for Dorset in 1597 and 

 for Cornwall in 1601. In September 1600 he 

 was appointed Governor of Jersey. On the acces- 

 sion of James I. Ralegh was stripped of all his 

 posts and monopolies, sent to the Tower for 

 alleged complicity in Lord Cobham's conspiracy, 

 and condemned to be executed on nth December 

 1603. On the loth December, however, he was 

 reprieved. From 1603 to 161 6 he was a prisoner 

 in the Tower, and there wrote his * History of 

 the World.' About 1610 Ralegh requested per- 

 mission to organise another expedition to Guiana. 

 In March 161 6 he was released from the Tower 



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