cassiques are still in arms against them, as by the governor's letter to the king of Spain may appear.

That by landing in Guiana there can be any breach of peace, I think it (under favour) impossible; for, to break peace where there is no peace, it cannot be. That the Spaniards give us no peace there, it doth appear, by the king's letters to the governor, that they should put to death all those Spaniards and Indians that trade con los Angleses enemigos, with English enemies. Yea, those very Spaniards which we encountered at St. Thome, did of late years murder 36 of Mr. Hale's men of London, and mine, who landed without weapon upon the Spaniard's faith to trade with them. Mr. Thorne also, in Tower street in London, beside many other English, were in like sort murdered in Oronoko the year before my delivery out of the Tower. Now if this kind of trade be peaceable, there is then a peaceable trade in the Indies between us and the Spaniards. But if this be cruel war and hatred and no peace, then there is no peace broken by our attempt. Again, how doth it stand with the greatness of the king of Spain, first to call us enemies, when he did hope to cut us in pieces, and then, having failed, to call us peace-breakers. For to be an enemy and a peace-breaker in one and the same action is impossible. But the king of Spain in his letter to the governor of Guiana, dated at Madrid March 19th, before we left the Thames, calls us, Angleses enemigos, English enemies. If it had pleased the

king of Spain to have written to his Majesty in seven months time, (for we were so long in preparing), and have made his Majesty know that our landing in Guiana would draw after it a breach of peace, I presume to think that his Majesty would have staid our enterprise for the present. This he might have done with less charge, than to levy 300 soldiers, and transport ten pieces of ordnance from Porto Rico, which soldiers added to the garrison of St. Thome, had they arrived before our coming, had overthrown all our raw companies, and there would have followed no complaints.

For the main point of landing near St. Thome, it is true that we were of opinion, that we must have driven the Spaniards out of the town before we could pass the thick woods upon the mountains to the mine. Which I confess I did first resolve upon, but better bethinking myself, I referred the taking of the town to the goodness of the mine. Which if they found to be so rich, as it might persuade the leaving of the garrison, then to drive the Spaniards thence; but to have burnt was never my intent, neither could they give me any reason why they did.

Upon their return, I examined the serjeantmajor and Keymis, why they followed not my last directions for the trial of the mine before the taking of the town; and they answered me, that although they durst hardly go to the mine, leaving a garrison of Spaniards between them and their boats, yet they offended their latter directions, and did land be

tween the town and the mine. And that the Spaniards, without any manner of parley, set upon them unawares, and charged them, calling them Perros Angleses, and by skirmishing with them, they drew them on to the very entrance of the town before they knew where they were. So that if any peace had been in those parts, the Spaniards first brake the peace and made the first slaughter. For as the English could not but land to seek the mine, being come thither to that end, so, being first reviled and charged by the Spaniards, they could do no less than repel force by force.

Lastly, it is a matter of no small consequence to acknowledge, that we have offended the king of Spain by landing in Guiana. For, first, it weakens his Majesty's title to the country, or quits it. Secondly, there is no king that hath ever given the least way to any other king or state in the traffic of the lives or goods of his subjects, viz. in our case, that it shall be lawful for the Spaniards to murder us, either by force or treason, and unlawful for us to defend ourselves and pay them with their own coin. For this superiority and inferiority is a thing which no absolute monarch ever yielded to, or ever will. Thirdly, it shews the English bears greater respect to the Spaniard, and is more doubtful of his forces, than either the French or Dutch is, who daily invade all parts of the Indies without being questioned at their return. Yea, at my own being at Plymouth, a French gentleman called Flory, went

thence with four sail and 300 landmen, with commission to land and burn, and to sack, all places in the Indies that he could master, and yet the French king hath married the daughter of Spain.

This is all that I can say, other than that I have spent my poor estate, lost my son and my health, and endured as many sorts of miseries, as ever man did, in hope to do his Majesty acceptable service; and have not to my understanding committed any hostile act, other than entrance upon a territory belonging rightly to the crown of England, where the English were first set upon and slain by the usurping Spaniards. I invaded no other parts of the Indies, pretended to by the Spaniards.

I returned into England with manifest peril of my life, with a purpose not to hold my life with any other than his Majesty's grace, and from which no man nor any peril could dissuade me. To that grace, and goodness, and kingliness, I refer myself, which, if it shall find that I have not yet suffered enough, it yet may please to add more affliction to the remainder of a wretched life.""

The Apology appears to have been first published with Sir Walter's Essays, in 1650. It hath been reprinted with the Abridgement of his History of the World, and in Dr. Birch's Works of Ralegh (II, 249); but, even in this last instance, with unpardonable negligence. A good old MS. copy or two of it is to be found in Sir Hans Sloane's Collection, and a very good one was presented to the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, by Mr. Baker. An attempt is made to restore the sense in the present edition.

CHAPTER IX.

Howell's two letters.... Sir Walter's return.... The Spanish match.----Gondomar's persecution. - - - - The king's proclamation....Lord Carew's assiduity.. The king's reply....Ralegh surrenders himself.... He feigns illness, and meditates his escape....Overture of the French agent. ---Ralegh betrayed by Stukely....He is recommitted to the Tower....His letters to the king and Buckingham....Gondomar goes to Spain....His parting injunctions....Ralegh examined

The commissioners' letter to the king....Ralegh told to prepare for death....He is brought to the King's bench....The proceedings against him....He is taken to the Gatehouse....The petitions in his facour....The queen's letter....His firmness...-His cerses before death, and answer to some imputations-.-His behaviour on the scaffold- - - - His last speech---His death....Dr. Tounson's letter....Ralegh's execution odious to the people....The king's Declaration. ....Letter to Cottington.

AMONG Howell's Familiar Letters is one to Sir James Crofts in 1618, when, as he informs us, he was a youth about the town, which gives a juster picture than any piece I am acquainted with, of the şentiments prevailing with the public, (ever too apt