Some Diversions of a Man of Letters | Page 7

disappointments continued to be sure, that in the
heart of the swamps of the Orinoco there existed a citadel of
magnificent wealth, an emporium of diamonds and gold, from which
Spain was secretly drawing the riches with which she proposed to
overwhelm civilisation. He struggled for nearly a quarter of a century
to win this marvellous city for England. James I. chopped in with his
cold logic, and declined to believe that any golden mine existed in
Guiana "anywhere in nature," as he craftily said. When Raleigh
returned after his last miserable failure in May 1617, the monarch
spared no sneer and no reproof to the pirate of the seas. Of course, the
King was right; there was no mine of diamonds, no golden city. But the
immense treasures that haunted Raleigh's dreams were more real than
reality; they existed in the future; he looked far ahead, and our
sympathies to-day, and our gratitude also, are all for the noble and
valorous knight who sailed out into the West searching for an unknown
El Dorado.

It is not so easy to defend the character of our hero against those who,
like Hume, have objected to his methods in the prosecution of his
designs. To Hume, as to many others before and since, Raleigh seemed
"extremely defective either in solid understanding, or morals, or both."
The excellent historians of the eighteenth century could not make up
their minds whether he was a hero or an impostor. Did he believe in the
Guiana mine, or was he, through all those strenuous years,
hoodwinking the world? Had he any purpose, save to plunder the
Spaniard? Perhaps his own family doubted his sanity, for his son
Walter, when he charged the Spanish settlement at San Thomé, pointed
to the house of the little colony and shouted to his men: "Come on, this
is the true mine, and none but fools would look for any other!"
Accusations of bad faith, of factious behaviour, of disloyal intrigue,
were brought up against Sir Walter over and over again during the "day
of his tempestuous life, drawn on into an evening" of ignominy and
blood. These charges were the "inmost and soul-piercing wounds" of
which he spoke, still "aching," still "uncured."
There is no need to recount to you the incidents of his life, but I may
remind you that after the failure of the latest expedition to South
America the Privy Council, under pressure from the Spanish
Ambassador, gave orders to Sir Lewis Stukeley to bring the body of Sir
Walter Raleigh speedily to London. This was the culmination of his fall,
since, three days after Raleigh landed at Plymouth, the King had
assured Spain that "not all those who have given security for Raleigh
can save him from the gallows." His examination followed, and the
publication of the Apology for the Voyage to Guiana. The trial dragged
on, while James I., in a manner almost inconceivable, allowed himself
to be hurried and bullied by the insolent tyrant Philip II. If the English
King did not make haste to execute Raleigh the Spaniards would fetch
him away and hang him in Madrid. In these conditions, and clutching at
life as a man clutches at roots and branches when he is sliding down a
precipice, the conduct of Raleigh has given cause to his critics to
blaspheme. He wriggled like an eel, he pretended to be sick, he
pretended to be mad, in order to protract his examination. He
prevaricated about his mine, about the French alliance, about the
Spanish treaties, about his stores and instruments. Did he believe, or

did he not believe, in the Empire of the Inca, in the Amazons or
Republic of Women, in the gold lying hidden in the hard white spar of
El Dorado? We do not know, and his own latest efforts at explanation
only cloud our counsel. He was perhaps really a little mad at last, his
feverish brain half-crazed by the movement on land and sea of the
triumphant wealth of Spain.
Let us never overlook that the master-passion of his whole career was
hatred of this tyrannous prosperity of England's most formidable rival.
He acted impulsively, and even unjustly; there was much in his
methods that a cool judgment must condemn; but he was fighting, with
his back to the wall, in order that the British race should not be
crowded out of existence by "the proud Iberian." He saw that if Spain
were permitted to extend her military and commercial supremacy
unchecked, there would be an end to civilisation. Democracy was a
thing as yet undeveloped, but the seeds of it were lying in the warm soil
of English liberty, and Raleigh perceived, more vehemently than any
other living man, that the complete victory of Spain would involve the