Early English Colonies in Trinidad. 391 



know not then, Sir, what course to take," were, the last 

 words of Keymis to Raleigh, in the latter's cabin in the 

 Destiny. Going then to the Couvertine^ Keymis entered 

 his own cabin, A pistol shot was soon heard. Raleigh 

 sent to ask who had fired it. Keymis himself answered, 

 that he had shot off the pistol, because it had been long 

 charged. Half an hour afterwards, Keymis was found 

 lying dead in his cabin, " having a long knife thrust, under 

 his left pap, through his heart, and his pistol lying by 

 him, with which it appeared that he had shot himself ; 

 but the bullet lighting upon a rib, had but broken the 

 rib, and went no further." The coming dramatist of 

 Trinidad will find ample materials for a Tragedy in the 

 events of 1618, as they transpired a.t Pundlo de Gallo, 

 now called Hicacos* 



Little did Raleigh's contemporaries reck, how near 

 to San Thomas, abundance of Gold would, in after times, 

 be found by Englishmen at the Old Callao Mine in 

 Venezuela; and, in the neighbouring English colony of 

 British Guiana. RALEIGH, the Founder of our Colonial 

 Empire, returned to England, only to be butchered to 

 make a Spanish Holiday. The Great Elizabethan 

 was, by order of King James I, executed in Old Palace 

 Yard, Westminster, on the 29th of October, 161 8, under 

 a sentence passed in 1603, for alleged offences of con- 

 spiring with Spain against England !* 



29. The English were not the only Heretics who 

 made free with His Catholic Majesty's island of Trinidad. 



* Justice may forgive 

 Kingdoms betrayed, and Worlds resigned to Spain^ 

 But never can forgive a Raleigh slain. 



—Churchill's Gotham. Book I. 

 3D 



