CH.XXIII. Blackstone was able to find room beside an absolute prerogative for the national liberties and Parliamentary privileges. So was Ralegh able. His language seems now unconstitutional, when, in his Maxims of State, he distinguishes the English 'Empire' from a 'limited Kingdom'; or when, in this Prerogative of Parliaments, he declares that 'the three Estates do but advise, as the Privy Council doth.' To him, however, 'limited' meant more than now, and 'absolute' less. He saw no inconsistency between the theory of royal absolutism and the application of popular checks. Their reconciliation was the purpose of the essay of 1615. That was evident to many excellent patriots of the next reign, who circulated and gloried in a composition which proved the writer their fellow worker. It was Not shared too apparent, though not to Hallam, to James, for the disserta by James. tion to move him to any kindness. The basis and principle of the discussion affronted all his prejudices. He was not to be beguiled by admissions of his theoretical omnipotence into affection for a wise and constitutional policy, which recognised popular rights. He had no inclination to traverse the golden bridge Ralegh had built for his return within the lines, whether of the Constitution, or of personal justice. In all relations Ralegh was antipathetic to James without consciousness of it. He could declare his implicit belief, in consonance with strict constitutional orthodoxy, that the King loved the liberties of his people, and that none but evil counsellors intercepted the signs of his liberality. He could acknowledge the tender benignity of his sovereign to himself, and throw upon betrayers of the royal trust the shame of his persecution. He could be excessively deferential and grateful in words and demeanour. He could not but act and reason with a mental independence as hateful to James as to Henry Howard, and as condemnatory. Whether he discoursed on Assyrian or on English politics, or on his private wrongs, he sat visibly on the seat of judgment. Nothing but tame silence and spiritual petrifaction could have made his peace at the Stuart Court. It was the one kind of fealty he was incapable of rendering. CHAPTER XXIV. THE RELEASE (March, 1616). No merits of his, and no sense of justice to him, opened, CH. XXIV. or ever would have opened, his prison doors. But at length it was become inconvenient to keep him under duress. The gaolers who cared to detain him were gone. In their places stood others who had an interest in sending him forth, though with a chain on his ankle. He could never have been brought to trial on a fantastic charge, or been convicted without evidence, unless for the weight of popular odium, which enabled the new Court to trample upon the favourite of the old. Without that he could not have been kept for long years in prison. Gradually the nation forgot its habit of dislike, which never had much foundation. Englishmen remembered his mighty deeds. They honoured him as the representative of a glorious and dead past. His fetters were How his Fetters fell of themselves falling off. Special circumstances helped to off shake him free of them. He had protested ineffectually in the name of right. He had pleaded to deaf ears for liberty to serve his country. At length an impression had been produced that the prosecution of his policy might bring money into other coffers beside his own. He had never ceased to plan the establishment of English colonies in Virginia and Guiana. He regarded both countries as his, and as English by priority of discovery or occupation. From the fragments of his broken fortunes the captive of the Tower had managed to fit out or subsidize expeditions at CH. XXIV. intervals to both. Every few years the Guiana Indians in particular were reminded by messages from him that their deliverance from the Spaniards was at hand. To Englishmen ores and plants from Guiana recalled the riches of the land, and their title to it. Thus, in December, 1609, we hear that Sir Walter Ralegh had a ship come from Guiana laden with gold ore. His chase after freedom was stimulated by visions of himself once more a leader, and the founder of an empire. The thought grew to be a passion, and almost a monomania. To gain permission to hazard life, health, and reputation in the western seas, he was ready to subscribe to the most grotesque conditions, which, however, do not seem to have impressed contemporaries as extravagant. He had hoped that the Queen Consort might consent to be lady patroness of Petitions to his project. In 1611 he solicited her formally. He proffered the Queen. by letter his service in Virginia. It was his name for Guiana, in order not to alarm pro-Spanish jealousies. He had been suspected of a design to fly from England under cover of a voyage of discovery. The Queen had faith in him, and he entreated her to give her word for him to mistrustful Cecil. He was willing, if he should not be on his way to America by a day set, to forfeit life and estate. As a security against turning aside to some foreign European Court after his departure from England, he would leave his wife and two sons as his pledges. His wife, whom we can see stooping over him, and dictating the words, 'shall yield herself to death, if I perform not my duty to the King.' If this sufficed not, the masters and mariners might have orders, if he offered to sail elsewhere, to cast him into the sea. Again in 1611 he addressed the Queen. Previously he had propounded to Cecil a scheme for a Guiana expedition, of which he now sent her a copy. He besought her influence on its behalf. She would be acting for the King's sake, that all presumption might be taken from his enemies, arising from the want of treasure.' He was scarcely pleading, he said, for himself. 'My extreme shortness of breath doth grow so fast, with the 6 despair of obtaining so much grace to walk with my keeper CH. XXIV. up the hill within the Tower, as it makes me resolve that God hath otherwise disposed of that business, and of me.' At this time interest in Guiana and its precious metals had revived. Ralegh had some morsels of merquisite he had himself picked up assayed by a refiner. The man found gold in them. These, or other specimens of Guiana ores, Sir Amias Preston, his old adversary, had seen. Preston had extolled them to Cecil. Ralegh may have discussed their virtues with Cecil in the Tower at one of the interviews in the laboratory, when, he complains, the Minister would listen, inquire, talk of the assay, hold out hopes, and then retreat into an arrière boutique, in which he lay unapproachable. A letter to Cecil, with the uncertainty of date which breaks the hearts of Ralegh's biographers, says: 'I have heard that Sir Amias Preston informed your Lordship of certain mineral stones brought from Guiana, of which your Lordship had some doubt-for so you had at my first return-secondly, that your Lordship thought it but an invention of mine to procure unto myself my former liberty; suspicions which might rightly form Golden Bait. into the cogitations of a wise man.' He assured Cecil that a mountain near the river contained an abundance sufficient to please every appetite.' Once he had thought the stones valueless, like other merquisite. He had been convinced of his error by the refiner, who was willing to go and be 'hanged there if he prove not his assay to be good.' To avert suspicion that he meant to become a runagate, Ralegh was ready not to command, but to ship as a private man. He repeated his strange offer to be cast into the sea if he should persuade a contrary course. The cost would be no more than £5000. 'Of that, if the Queen's Majesty, to whom I am bound for her compassion, and your Lordship will bear two parts, I and my friends will bear a third. Your Lordship may have gold good and cheap, and may join others of your honourable friends in the matter, if you please. For there is enough. The journey may go under the colour of Virginia. We will U CH. XXIV. break no peace; invade none of the Spanish towns. We will His intention see none of that nation, except they assail us.' Or In 1611, or 1612, he alternated his overtures to the Queen with others to Lords of the Council, who, it may be gathered from a letter of his, agreed to become joint-adventurers with him. A plan had been started for sending Captain Keymis with two ships to Guiana, and enough men to defend him ‘from the Spaniards inhabiting upon Orenoche, not that it is meant to begin any quarrel with them, except themselves shall begin the war.' Captain Moate, servant of Ralegh's friend, Sir John Watts, had come the last spring 'from St. Thome, where the Spaniards inhabit.' According to him Keymis might safely go the five miles from the river to his mountain. could bring from the mine 'half a ton of that In this way he slate gold ore, In default, all whereof I gave a sample to my Lord Knevett.' |