know with whom I deal; for we have to deal to-day with a man of wit."

Ralegh. "I will wash my hands of the indictment, and die a true man to the King."

Attorney-General. "You are the absolutest traitor that ever

was."

Ralegh. "Your phrases will not prove it, Mr. Attorney. I do not hear yet that you have spoken one word against me: here is no treason of mine done. If my lord Cobham is a traitor, what is that to me?"

Attorney-General. "All he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor."

Ralegh. "It becometh not a man of quality and virtue to call me so. But I take comfort in it; it is all you can do." Attorney-General. "Have I angered you?"

Ralegh. "I am in no case to be angry.'

The depositions were now read. "They did not," says Lord Campbell, "by any means make out the prisoner's complicity in the plot." The Attorney-General observed, "Ralegh saith, if the accuser be alive, he must be brought face to face to speak; and alleges that there must be two sufficient witnesses that must be brought face to face before the accused."

Ralegh. "You try me by the Spanish Inquisition, if you proceed only by the circumstances, without two witnesses.”

Attorney-General. "This is a treasonable speech."

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Ralegh. Let Cobham be here; let him speak it. Call my accuser before my face, and I have done."

We hope we have already made it clear that a prisoner is being tried for his life on the deposition mainly of a man who had accused and retracted; retracted twice, and again accused; that a Winchester bushel of the wretch's oaths ought to have been as potential towards a conviction of Ralegh, as the same measure of the Attorney-General's foul-mouthed vituperations. It must ere this have been clear, not only to Sir Walter, but to every man

* It has often been remarked (and it is very probable,) that Shakspeare had this in his mind when he was writing that scene in "Twelfth Night," where Sir Toby sketches out for Sir Andrew the form of his challenge: "If thou thou'st him some thrice it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper. Let there be gall enough in thy ink."

there present, that they wanted his life, and were determined to have it.

Not even Coke had the audacity to attempt an answer to the following statement of the prisoner

"As soon as Cobham saw my letter to have discovered his dealing with Aremberg, in his fury he accused me; but before he came to the stair-foot he repented, and said he had done me wrong. When he came to the end of his accusation, he added, that if he had brought this money to Jersey, he feared that I would have delivered him and the money to the king. Mr. Attorney, you said this came out of Cobham's quiver—he is a simple man. Is he so simple? No; he hath a disposition of his own; he will not easily be guided by others; but when he has once taken head in a matter, he is not easily drawn from it: he is no babe, But it is strange for me to devise with Cobham that he should go to Spain to persuade the king to disburse so much money, he being a man of no love in England, and I having resigned my room of chiefest command, the Wardenship of the Stannaries.* Is it not strange for me to make myself Robin Hood, or a Kett, or a Cade, I knowing England to be in a better estate to defend itself than ever it was? I knew Scotland united, Ireland quieted, wherein of late our forces were dispersed; Denmark assured, which before was suspected. I knew that, having lost a lady whom time had surprised, we had now an active king, a lawful successor, who would himself be present in all his affairs. The state of Spain was not unknown to me: I had written a discourse, which I had intended to present unto the king, against peace with Spain. I knew the Spaniards had six repulses, three in Ireland, and three at sea, and once in 1588, at Cadiz, by my Lord Admiral.† I knew he was * Ralegh, detested by the citizens of London, was very popular in Devon and Cornwall.

In his letter to the Earls of Nottingham, Suffolk, and Devon, and to Cecil, written a few days before his trial, he says, "I have been a violent persecutor of that nation. I have served against them in person; and how my Lord Admiral and Lord of Suffolk can witness. I discovered, myself, the richest part of all his Indies; I have planted in his territories ; I offered his majesty, at my uncle Carew's, to carry two thousand men to invade him without the King's charge. Alas! to what end should we live in the world, if all the endeavours of so many testimonies shall be blown off with one blast of wrath, or be prevented by one man's word!"

discouraged and dishonoured. I knew the king of Spain to be the proudest prince in Christendom; but now he cometh creeping to the king, my master, for peace. I knew, whereas before he had in his port six or seven score sail of ships, he hath now but six or seven. I knew of twenty-four millions he had from his Indies, he hath scarce one left. I knew him to be so poor that the Jesuits in Spain, who were wont to have such large allowance, were fain to beg at the church door. Was it ever read or heard that any prince should disburse so much money without a sufficient pawn? I knew her own subjects, the citizens of London, would not lend her majesty money without lands in mortgage. I knew the Queen did not lend the States money without Flushing, Brill, and other towns for a pawn. And can it be thought that he would let Cobham have so great a sum?"

We must give further portions of this extraordinary trial. Sir Edward Coke is held in reverence by the profession, and proclaimed the greatest lawyer that ever practised at the bar, or sat upon the bench. Doubtless he deserves this high reputation. But there is too much reason to believe that he who audaciously put the law on one side to curry favour with James, vindicated its supremacy to feed fat his malice against his memory. Let lawyers worship the lawyer; the rest of the world must ever regard the man with disgust.

Here is Laurencie's examination: "Within five days after Aremberg arrived, Cobham resorted unto him. That night that Cobham went to Aremberg with Laurencie, Ralegh supped with him." Upon this evidence of treason, Coke had the effrontery to exclaim, "The crown shall never stand one year on the head of the King, my master, if a traitor may not be condemned by circumstances.” There was one Dyer, a pilot, called and sworn. He said :—

"I came to a merchant's house in Lisbon to see a boy that I had there. There came a gentleman into the house, and, inquiring what countryman I was, I said an Englishman. Whereupon he asked me if the King was crowned, and I answered, no; but that I hoped that he should be so shortly. Nay,' saith he, 'he shall never be crowned; for Don Ralegh and Don Cobham will cut his throat ere that day come.'" Coke had the unblushing impudence to offer this as evidence.*

* Sir John Hawles, Solicitor-General to King William III., in his answer

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