RALEIGH. 



313 



king of Spain to procure his assistance. In his d< 

 : ir \Valur displayed the greatest eloquence us well as 

 temper and force of argument, anJ he made an able 

 stand against the legality of conviction upon the evi- 

 dence of a single witnes?. These objections, however, 

 were ovtrrultd, ;iml the judge degraded his office by 

 passing sentence on Raleigh. Even Coke, the attorney 

 general, who used the vile privileges of a lawyer in 

 abusing Raleigh, could not avoid expressing surprise 

 at the sentence, and declared that he had charged him 

 only with rnisprision of treason. Three of the con- 

 M'trators in this plot were executed, two were pardon- 

 td, and R-iIfigh, who had only obtained a reprieve, was 

 committed to the Tower. 



In this condition of hopeless confinement, his wife 

 was, at her own earnest desire, allowed to live with 

 him, and their youngest son was born in the Tower. 

 To beguile the tedium of confinement, Sir Walter de- 

 voted his mind to study, and composed the greater 

 number of his works, especially his History of the 

 World, aproduction remarkable for the purity and vigour 

 of its style. The situation of our author seems to have 

 excited much commiseration and sympathy. Even 

 Prince Henry, a youth of warm affection and great 

 promise, not only cherished the highest admiration for 

 the talents of Raleigh, but ventured to correspond 

 with him, and to relieve the solitude of his confinement 

 by his sympathy and friendship. " No king," the 

 prince is reported to have said, " but my father, would 

 keep such a bird in a cage." The death of this gener- 

 ous prince, however, extinguished in the mind of Ra- 

 leigh all hope of deliverance. 



In March 1616', after an imprisonment of twelve 

 years, he at last obtained his freedom, but not, as has 

 been supposed, without heavy bribes paid to the Duke 

 of Buckingham. Notwithstanding the failure of Ra- 

 leigh's last adventure to Guiana, he planned a new ex- 

 pedition to that land of gold, and by circulating the 

 report that a rich gold mine existed in it, he engaged 

 a number of speculators to embark their capital ; and 

 in August 1616, he obtained from the king, and under 

 the great seal of England, a patent for making a set- 

 tlement in Guiana. 



In order to retain a hold upon Raleigh, James had 

 never yet granted him a pardon ; and as this could 

 easily have been purchased, Sir Walter consulted Sir 

 Francis Bacon respecting the propriety of his pay- 

 ing a sum of money for the royal mercy. This 

 great lawyer is said to have replied, " The knee tim- 

 bers of your voyage is money ; spare your purse in 

 this particular, for upon my life you have sufficient 

 pardon for all that has past ; the king having under his 

 broad seal made you admiral of your fleet, and given you 

 power of martial law over your officers and soldiers." 



In July 1617, Raleigh sailed for Guiana with his 

 armament of twelve vessels, upon which he had lavish- 

 ed all his resources. He was compelled, however, by 

 stress of weather to put into Cork harbour, where he 

 continued till the 19th of August. He reached Guiana 

 in November ; and the Indians, who received him with 

 open arms, offered him the sovereignty of the country, 

 which he of course refused. A severe and lengthened 

 illness, however, prevented him from exploring the 

 mine of gold ; but Kemys, one of his captains, made the 

 necessary search, and found to his great mortification, 

 that the Spaniards had anticipated him in the search 

 for this precious mttal. The eldest son of our author 

 lost his life in this expedition; and Captain Kemys, 



VOL. XVII. PART I. 



in consequence of having been severely reproved for the 

 failure of his search, put an end to hi own life. 



Thwarted in this favourite object of his ambition, in 

 the success of which his judgment and character were 

 in no small degree com promised ; and wounded in his 

 tenderest feelings by the loss of his son and of hi 

 captain, he steered homewards with a heavy sail, and 

 arrived at Portsmouth in July 1618. 



It has been said, but we presume not upon good 

 authority, that the whole of Raleigh's scheme had been 

 revealed to the Spaniards by King James himself, for 

 the express purpose of getting rid of him. This opi- 

 nion, indeed, receives tome confirmation from the sub- 

 sequent conduct of James. No sooner had Kaleigh set 

 off for London from Plymouth, than he was arrested 

 and imprisoned. The two attempts which he made to 

 escape, indicate the light in which he viewed the royal 

 temper ; but in both of them he was baffled, and he 

 was secured and committed a prisoner to the Tower. 



The Spaniards, indeed, had entered a strong remo : 

 strance against Raleigh's invasion of their territory ; 

 and as they were then at peace with England, James 

 affected to be highly exasperated at the injury which 

 they had received. His future views, too, with regard 

 to Spain, strengthened this feeling, and he seems to 

 have resolved to sacrifice Raleigh to the resentment of 

 that nation. 



In a country such as England then was, and in an 

 age when a sense of strict justice, and the nature of 

 judicial evidence were less attended to than they were 

 understood ; it was difficult even then to contrive a 

 decent pretence for taking away the life of Raleigh. 

 Commissioners were appointed to inquire into his con- 

 duct in Guiana ; but no act during that expedition could 

 be fixed upon as a ground for putting him on his trial. 

 It was therefore resolved to revive his former sen- 

 tence, and on, this ground he was brought before thu 

 king's bench. It was in vain that he urged his plea 

 of an implied pardon ; it was in vain that he produced 

 the king's commission under which he had acted as a 

 subject alive in the eye of the law. Justice was now 

 really and BO longer metaphorically blind. The equi- 

 librium of her scales was overset by the whole weight 

 of the royal resentment; and with one hand clenched 

 in rage, she pronounced a sentence of condemnation, 

 the basest and the most flagrant that ever disgraced the 

 darkest era of barbarism, or the most flagitious convul- 

 sion of civilized society. We forget the name of the 

 judge who lent his conscience to that nefarious decision 

 and may it for ever be forgotten ; lest some honest 

 man who may not have courage to renounce it, may 

 partake in the infamy with which it must ever be 

 associated. 



The sentence of death was pronounced on Raleigh 

 on the 28th of October 1618, and on the 2pth he was 

 executed in Old Palace- Yard, and his remains inter- 

 red in St. Margaret's Church, in the vicinity. His 

 behaviour on the scaffold was such as might have been 

 expected from a man who had so often braved death 

 for his own purposes. He made a speech to the mob. 

 He declared that he had no fear of death, and that he 

 would rather die on the scaffold than in a burning fever. 

 He requested a sight of the axe, and feeling its edge, 

 he said to the sheriff, " This is a sharp medicine, but 

 a sure remedy for all evils." Being asked by the exe- 

 cutioner how he would wish to place himself on the 

 block ? he replied, " So the heart be right, it is no 

 matter which way the head lies." He then gave the 



SB 



