you possession. I will most willingly give whatsoever in your conscience you shall deeme it worth, and if at any time shall have occasion to use me, you shall find me a thankeful friend to you and yours. I am resolved, if I cannot entreat you, to build at Colliton; but for the naturall disposition I have to that place, being borne in that house, I had rather seate myselfe there than any where els; I take my leave, readie to countervaile all your courtesies to the utter of my power. Your very willing friend, In all I shall be able, Court, ye xxvi of July, 1584. Two Letters relative to Ralegh, by James To Sir James Crofts, Knight, at S. Osith. I COULD not shake hands with England, without kissing your hands also: and because, in regard of your distance now from London, I cannot do it in person, I send this paper for my deputy. The news that keeps greatest noise here now, is the return of Sir Walter Raleigh from his myne of gold in Guiana the south parts of America, which at first was like to be such a hopefull boon voyage, but it seems that that golden myne is proved a meer chymera, an imaginary airy myne; and indeed his majestie had never any other conceipt of it: but what will not one in captivity (as sir Walter was) promise, to regain his freedom? who would not promise not onely mynes, but mountains of gold, for liberty? and 'tis pity but such a knowing well-weighed knight had not had a better fortune; for the Destiny (I mean that brave ship which he built himself of that name, that carried him thither) is like to prove a fatall Destiny to him, and to some of the rest of those gallant adventurers which contributed for the setting forth of thirteen ships more, who were most of them his kinsmen and younger brothers, being led into the said expedition by a generall conceipt the world had of the wisedom of sir Walter Raleigh; and many of these are like to make shipwrack of their estates by this voyage. Sir Walter landed at Plymouth, whence he thought to make an escape; and some say he hath tampered with his body by phisick, to make him look sickly, that he may be the more pitied, and permitted to lie in his own house. Count Gondamar the Spanish ambassador speaks high language, and sending lately to desire audience of his majestie, he said he had but one word to tell him, his majestie wondring what might he delivered in one word; when he came before him, he said onely, pyrats, pyrats, pyrats, and so departed. "Tis true that he protested against this voyage before, and that it could not be but for some prædatory designe: and if it be as I hear, I fear it will go very ill with sir Walter, and that Gondamar will never give him over, till he hath his head off his shoulders; which may quickly be done, without any new arraignment, by vertue of the old sentence that lies still dormant against him, which he could never get off by pardon, notwithstanding that he mainly laboured in it before he went; but his majestie could never be brought to it, for he said he would keep this as a curb to hold him within the bounds of his commission, and the good behaviour. Gondamar cries out, that he hath broke the sacred peace twixt the two kingdoms, that he hath fired and plundred Santo Thoma, a colony the Spaniards had planted with so much blood, neer under the line, which made it prove such a hot service unto him, and where, besides others, he lost his eldest son in the action; and could they have preserved the magazin of tobacco onely, besides other things in that town, something mought have bin had to countervail the charge of the voyage. Gondamar alleadgeth further, that the enterprise of the myne failing, he propounded to the rest of his fleet to go and intercept some of the Plategaleons, with other designes which would have drawn after them apparant acts of hostility, and so demands justice: besides other disasters which fell out upon the dashing of the first designe, captain Kemish, who was the main instrument for discovery of the myne, pistol'd himself in a desperat mood of discontent in his cabin, in the Convertine. This return of sir Walter Raleigh from Guiana, puts me in minde of a facetious tale I read lately in Italian (for I have a little of that language already) how Alphonso king of Naples sent a moor who had been his captive a long time, to Barbary, to buy horses, and to return by such a time. Now there was about the king a kinde of buffon or jester who had a table-book, wherein he was used to register any absurdity, or impertinence, or merry passage that happened about the court. That day the moor was dispatched for Barbary, the said jester waiting upon the king at supper, the king call'd for his journall, and askt what he had observed that day: thereupon he produced his table-book, and amongst other things, he read how Alphonso king of Naples had sent Beltran the moor, who had been a long time his prisoner, to Morocco (his own countrey) with so many thousand crowns, to buy horses. The king asked him why he inserted that: "because," said he, "I think he "will never come back to be a prisoner again, and so you "have lost both man and money. But if he do come, then your jest is marr'd," quoth the king: "No sir; for if he "return I will blot out your name, and put him in for a "fool." 66 The application is easie and obvious: but the world wonders extremely, that so great a wise man as sir Walter Raleigh would return to cast himself upon so inevitable a rock, as I fear he will; and much more, that such choice men, and so great a power of ships, should all come home, and do nothing. The letter you sent to my father, I conveyed safely the last week to Wales. I am this week, by God's help, for the Netherlands, and then I think for France. If in this my forren employment I may be any way serviceable unto you, you know what power you have to dispose of me; for I honor you in a very high degree, and will live and die. Your humble and ready servant, J. H. To the Honourable Master Car, Ra. SIR, YOURS of the seventh current was brought me, whereby I find that you did put yourself to the penance of perusing some epistles that go imprinted lately in my name: I am bound to you for your pains and patience, (for you write you read them all thorough,) much more for your candid opinion of them; being right glad that they should give entertainment to such a choice and judicious gentleman as yourself: but whereas you seem to except against something in one letter, that reflects upon sir Walter Rawleigh's voyage to Guyana, because I term the gold mine he went to discover, an "airy and suppositious mine," and so infer that it toucheth his honour: truly, sir, I will deal clearly with you in that point, that I never harbour'd in my brain the least thought to expose to the world, any thing that might prejudice, much less traduce in the least degree that could be, that rare and renowned knight, whose fame shall contend in longevity with this island itself; yea, with that great world which he historiseth so gallantly: I was a youth about the town when he undertook that expedition; and I remember most men suspected that mine then to be but an imaginary politic thing; but at his return, and missing of the enterprize, these suspitions turn'd in most to real beliefs that 'twas no other. And K. James in that declaration which he commanded to be printed and published afterwards, touching the circumstances of this action (upon which my letter is grounded, and which I have still by me) terms it no less and if we may not give faith to such publick, regal instruments, what shall we credit? Besides, there goes another printed kind of remonstrance annex'd to that declaration, which intimates as much. And there is a worthy captain in this town, who was a co-adventurer in that expedition, who, upon the storming of St. Thomas, heard young Mr. Rawleigh encouraging his men in these words, "Come on my noble hearts, this is the mine we come for; "and they who think there is any other, are fools." Add hereunto, that sir Richard Baker, in his last Historical Collections, intimates so much; therefore 'twas far from being any opinion broach'd by myself, or bottom'd upon weak grounds: for I was careful of nothing more, than that those letters, being to breath open air, should relate nothing but what should be derived from good fountains. And truly, |