8 unnatural and servile (observes Wilson) is the spirit when it hath an allay of baseness, there being many others fitter for that employment'.' With Stukely Sir Walter returned to Plymouth; where, panic-struck upon a closer view of his situation, he once meditated. an escape into France (with a view, probably, of returning to Guiana and proving his point), held a vessel in readiness some days, and one night actually took-boat for her. Still, however, the goodness of his cause prevailed over every apprehension, and this project was again laid aside 9. Yet he found it necessary on his journey to London, to gain time for preparing his vindication by the expedient of Feigns illness. feigning illness; which he practised at Salisbury by the assistance of Mannourie, a French quack, and in that interval wrote the Apology for his Voyage, already given in the preceding chapter. The particulars of this stratagem, as prepared and published by King James in his Declaration, after Sir Walter's death, will be found in the Appendix, and need not be repeated here. Meditates his escape. As Sir Walter approached London and became better acquainted with the politics of the court, he regreted to his Lady (who it appears had joined him on the road) and to his old servant King, that he had not profited of the opportunity which he enjoyed at Plymouth. And when a pursuivant appeared, with a warrant for the speedy bringing-up his person, his constancy forsook him, and he again, notwithstanding the increased difficulty, meditated an escape. "He once more (King informs us) employed me, who was always ready to do anything that might procure his safety; being well assured in my own conscience, though he sought to absent himself till the Spanish fury was over, yet, as he always said, that no misery should make him disloyal to his king or country. And although Mannourie in his declaration sets down, that Sir Walter Ralegh should to him in private speak ill of His Majesty, yet I must protest my last hour, that in all the years I followed him I never heard him name His Majesty but with reverence." King was accordingly till Life and Reign of James I. 9 King's Narrative as above. 10 No. XVIIL dispatched dispatched beforehand to London, to prepare a vessel for this pose ". pur French agent. Meanwhile, the royal Declaration published after Sir Walter's death Overture of informs us, that on the knight's arrival at Brentford he received an overture (which was afterward followed up by a meeting) from Le Clerc, at this time the French agent in London, to facilitate his escape into France, and secure his introduction in that country; the former part of which he declined, placing greater confidence in his messenger's preparations". King, however, as well as Ralegh, greatly Stukely. misapplied his trust in the agents he employed; and Stukely, after receiving a bribe, encouraging and even pretending to lend a hand in the design, betrayed Sir Walter. In a boat, below Woolwich, in the very act of making his escape in disguise, the knight was apprehended; and recommitted to the Tower on the 10th of August ". Though the precise dates of the following letters, addressed by Sir Walter to the king and the favourite, be uncertain, no material error can arise by their insertion at this place. Sir WALTER RALEGH to King JAMES I. "MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY! Recommitted to the tower king. "Ir in my journey outward-bound I had my men murdered Letter to the at the islands, and yet spared to take revenge; if I did discharge some Spanish barks taken, without spoil; if I forbore all parts of the Spanish Indies, wherein I might have taken twenty of their towns on the sea-coasts; and did only follow the enterprise I undertook for Guiana (where, without any directions from me, a Spanish village was burnt which was new set-up within three miles of the mine) by Your Majesty's favour, I find no reason why the Spanish ambassador shou complain of me. If it were lawful for the Spaniards to murder twenty-six Englishmen, tying them back to back and then cutting their throats, when they had traded with them a whole month and came to them on the land without so much as one sword; and it may not be lawful for Your Majesty's subjects, being charged first by them, to repel force by force-we may justly say, O! miserable English! If Parker and Mecham took Campeachy and other places in the Honduras, seated in the heart of the Spanish Indies, burnt towns and killed the Spaniards, and had nothing said unto them at their return; and myself, who forbore to look into the Indies because I would not offend, must be accused-I may as justly say, O! miserable Ralegh! If I have spent my poor estate, lost my son, suffered, by sickness and otherwise, a world of hardships; if I have resisted, with manifest hazard of my life, the robberies and spoils with which my companions would have made me rich; if when I was poor I could have made myself rich; if when I had gotten my liberty, which all men and nature itself do much prize, I voluntarily lost it; if when I was sure of my life I rendered it again; if I might elsewhere have sold my ship and goods, and put five or £.6000 in my purse, and yet brought her into England; I beseech Your Majesty to believe that all this I have done, because it should not be said that Your Majesty had given liberty and trust to a man, whose end was but the recovery of his liberty, and who had betrayed Your Majesty's trust. My mutineers told me, that if I returned for England I should be undone; but I believed in Your Majesty's goodness more than in all their arguments. Sure I am the first, that being free and able to enrich myself, yet hath embraced poverty and peril. And as sure I am am that Your Majesty's most humble vassal, WALTER RALEGH"."' Sir WALTER RALEGH to the Marquis of BUCKINGHAM. I ingham. "IF I presume too much, I humbly beseech Your Lordship Letter to Buckto pardon me, especially in presuming to write to so great and worthy a person who hath been told that I have done him wrong. heard it but of late; but most happy had I been, if I might have disproved that villainy against me, when there had been no suspicion that the desire to save my life had presented my excuse. But, My Worthy Lord, it is not to excuse myself that I now write. I cannot, for I have now offended my sovereign lord. For all past, even all the world and my very enemies have lamented my loss; whom now if His Majesty's mercy alone do not lament, I am lost. Howsoever, that which doth comfort my soul in this offence is, that even in the offence itself I had no other intent than His Majesty's service, and to make His Majesty know that my late enterprise was grounded upon a truth. And which with one ship speedily set out, I meant to have assured or to have died; being resolved, as it is well known, to have done it from Plymouth, had I not been restrained. Hereby I hoped not only to recover His Majesty's gracious opinion, but have destroyed all those malignant reports which had been spread of me. That this is true, that gentleman whom I so 14 In a copy in the Harleian Collection (xxxix. 350.) this letter bears date Septem ber, 1618. See also other collections and X 2 much much trusted (my keeper) and to whom I opened my heart, cannot but testify; and wherein if I cannot be believed living, my death shall witness. Yea, that gentleman cannot but avow it, that when we came back toward London, I desired to save no other treasure than the exact description of those places in the Indies. That I meant to go hence as a discontented man, God I trust and mine own actions will dissuade His Majesty (whom neither the loss of my estate, thirteen years imprisonment and the denial of my pardon could beat from his service; and the opinion of being accounted a fool or rather distract, by returning as I did unpardoned, balanced with my love to. His Majesty's person and estate) had no place at all in my heart. It was the last severe letter from My Lords for the speedy bringing of me up and the impatience of dishonour, that first put me in fear of my life, or enjoying it in a perpetual imprisonment never to recover my reputation lost. Which strengthened me in my late, and toolate- lamented resolution if His Majesty's mercy do not abound; if His Majesty do not pity my age, and scorn to take the extremest and utmost advantage of my errors; if His Majesty, in his great charity,. do not make a difference between offences proceeding from a lifesaving, natural impulsion without all ill-intent, and those of an illheart; and that Your Lordship, remarkable in the world for the nobleness of your disposition, do not vouchsafe to become my intercessor. Whereby Your Lordship shall bind an hundred gentlemen of my kindred to honour your memory, and bind me, for all the time: of that life which Your Lordship shall beg for me, to pray to God: that you may ever prosper; and ever bind me to remain, |