well known, he left me six, seven, eight, nine, and ten days together alone, to go whither I listed, while he rode himself about the country.

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Again, he accused me, that I should tell him my Lord Carew and my Lord Doncaster would meet me in France,' which was never my speech or thought.

"He farther accused me, that I should show him a letter, whereby I did signify unto him, that I would give him ten thousand pounds for my escape; but God cast my soul into everlasting fire, if I made any such proffer of ten thousand pounds, or one thousand. But indeed I showed him a letter, that if he would go with me, there should be order taken for his debts when he was gone: neither had I ten thousand pounds to give him; for, if I had had so much, I could have made my peace with it better another way, than in giving it to Stukely.

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"Farther, when I came to Sir Edward Pelham's house, who had been a follower of mine, and who gave me good entertainment, he gave out that I had received some dram of poison;' when I answered him, I feared no such thing, for I was well assured of them in the house, and therefore wished him to have no such thought.' Now God forgive him, for I do; and I desire God to forgive him. I will not say, 'God is a God of revenge;' but I desire God to forgive him, as I do desire to be forgiven of God."

Then looking over his note of remembrance, "Well, thus far have I gone; a little more, a little more, and I will have done by and by.

"It was told the King, that I was brought per force into England, and that I did not intend to come again' but Sir Charles Parker, Mr. Tresham, Mr.

Leake, and divers know how I was dealt withal by the common soldiers, which were one hundred and fifty in number, who mutinied and sent for me to come into the ship to them, for unto me they would not come; and there I was forced to take an oath, that I would not go into England till that they would have me,' otherwise they would have cast me into the sea; and therewithal they drove me into my cabin, and bent all their forces against me. After I had taken this oath, with wine and other things, such as I had about me, I drew some of the chiefest to desist from their purposes: and, at length, I persuaded them to go into Ireland; which they were willing unto, and would have gone into the northparts of Ireland; which I dissuaded them from, and told them, that they were Red-shanks that inhabited there and with much ado I persuaded them to go into the south parts of Ireland, promising them to get their pardons, and was forced to give them one hundred and twenty-five pounds at Kinsale, to bring them home, otherwise I had never got from thence.

"There was a report, that I meant not to go to Guiana at all; and that I knew not of any mine, nor intended any such thing or matter, but only to get my liberty, which I had not the wit to keep.* But

* A strange fancy indeed (he says elsewhere) had it been in me to have persuaded my son, whom I have lost, and to have persuaded my wife to have adventured the 8,000l., which his Majesty gave them for Sherborne; and when that was spent, to persuade my wife to sell her house at Mitcham, in hope of enriching them by the mines of Guiana, if I myself had not seen them with my own eyes. For being old and weakly, thirteen years in prison, and not used to the air, to travel, and to watching, it being ten to one that I should ever have returned, and of which by reason of my violent sickness and the long continu

I protest it was my full intent, and for gold; for gold for the benefit of his Majesty and myself, and of those that ventured and went with me, with the rest of my countrymen; but he that knew the head of the mine would not discover it, when he saw my son was slain, but made himself away."

Then turning to the Earl of Arundel, he said, "My Lord, being in the gallery of my ship at my departure, I remember your honour took me by the hand, and said, 'You would request one thing of me, which was that whether I made a good voyage or a bad, I should not fail but to return again into England;' which I then promised you, and gave you my faith I would: and so I have." To which my Lord answered, "It is true, I do very well remember it they were the very last words, I spake unto you."

"Another slander was raised of me, that I would have gone away from them, and left them at Guiana.* But there was a great many worthy men, that accompanied me always, as my serjeant-major George Ralegh and divers others, which knew my intent was nothing so.

"Also it hath been said, that I stinted them of fresh water." To which I answer, every one was, as they must be in a ship, furnished by measure, and

ance thereof no man had any hope, what madness could have made me undertake that journey, but the assurance of the mine; thereby to have done his Majesty service, to have bettered my country by the trade, and to have restored my wife and children their estates they had lost, for which I have refused all other ways or means! For that I had no purpose to have changed my master and my country, my return in the state I did return may satisfy every honest and indifferent man.”

not according to their appetites: this course, all seamen know, must be used among them, and to this strait were we driven.

"Another opinion was held of me, that I carried with me to sea sixteen thousand pieces, and that was all the voyage I intended, only to get money into my hands. As I shall answer it before God, I had not in all the world in my hands, or others to my use, either directly or indirectly, above a hundred pounds; whereof, when I went, I gave my wife twenty-five pounds: but the error thereof came, as I perceived, there was entered 20,000l. and but 4,000/. in the Surveyor's book: the rest had my hand to the bills for divers adventures. But I protest, I had not a penny of money more than a hundred pounds, as I hope to be saved!

"And these be the material points, I thought good to speak of. I am now, at this instant, to render my account to God; and I protest, as I shall appear before him,this that I have spoken is true.

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"I will only borrow a little time of Mr. Sheriff to speak of one thing, that doth make my heart to bleed, to hear that such an imputation should be laid upon me; for it is said, that I should be a persecutor of the death of the Earl of Essex, and that I stood in a window over-against him when he suffered, and puffed out tobacco in disdain of him.' God I take to witness, I shed tears for him when he died: and as I hope to look God in the face hereafter, my Lord of Essex did not see my face when he suffered; for I was afar off in the Armoury,* where I saw him, but

*He attended in his capacity of Captain of the Guard. For an answer to the calumny here alluded to, and the other Crimi

he saw not me. I confess, indeed, I was of a contrary faction: but I knew my Lord of Essex was a noble gentleman, and that it would be worse with me when he was gone; for I got the hate of those, which wished me well before, and those, that set me against him, afterward set themselves against me, and were my greatest enemies. And my soul hath many times been grieved, that I was not nearer him when he died; because, as I understood afterward, he asked for me at his death, to have been reconciled unto me."

He then concluded with entreating the spectators to join him in prayer to God, "whom," said he, "I have most grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, who have lived a sinful life in all sinful callings: for I have been a soldier, a captain, a seacaptain, and a courtier; which are all courses of wickedness and vice."* After which, proclamation being made that all men should depart the scaffold, he prepared himself for death; giving away his hat, his cap, and some money, to such as he knew who stood near him. He next took leave of the lords, knights, gentlemen, and others of his acquaintance; and among the rest, of Lord Arundel, whom he entreated to desire the King, that no scandalous writing to defame him might be published after his death;

nations relative to this voyage adduced by the Stuartising Hume, see, as above quoted, Cayley's Life of Ralegh,' Appendix, No. XXII. (II. 447-455.)

* All the printed and MS. copies of this speech, though in substance they generally agree, in phraseology widely differ. See the Harleian, &c. ' Collections,' Ralegh's Remains,' Overbury's Arraignment,' Oldys' Life,' and Birch's Works

Ralegh!