III. CHAP. age, which was never daunted, mild self-possession and fertility of invention, ensured him glory in his profession of arms, and his services in the conquest of Cadiz, or the capture of Fayal, were alone sufficient to establish his fame as a gallant and successful commander. In every danger his life was distinguished by valor, and his death was ennobled by true magnanimity. He was not only admirable in active life as a soldier; he was an accomplished scholar. No statesman in retirement ever expressed the charms of tranquil leisure more beautifully than Raleigh; and it was not entirely with the language of grateful friendship, that Spenser described his "sweet verse, as sprinkled with nectar," and rivalling the melodies of "the summer's nightingale." When an unjust verdict, contrary to probability and the evidence, "against law and against equity," on a charge, which seems to have been a pure invention, left him to languish for years in prison, with the sentence of death suspended over his head, his active genius plunged into the depths of erudition; and he, who had been a soldier, a courtier, and a seaman, now became the elaborate author of a learned history of the world. His career as a statesman was honorable to the pupil of Coligny and the contemporary of L' Hopital. In his public policy he was thoroughly an English 1 Sonnet prefixed to Faery Queen. Faery Queen, b. iii. Int. st. iv. Compare, also, Spenser's Colin Clout's come home again, verses 68-75, and Faery Queen, b. iii. c. vii. st. 36-41. 2 The words are from Hume, an enemy to Raleigh's fame. RALEIGH THE FRIEND OF MARITIME ENTERPRIZE. 125 III. patriot; jealous of the honor, the prosperity, and CHAP. the advancement of his country; the inexorable antagonist of the pretensions of Spain. In parliament he defended the freedom of domestic industry. When, by the operation of unequal laws, taxation was a burden upon industry rather than wealth, he argued for a change;1 himself possessed of a lucrative monopoly, he gave his vote for the repeal of all monopolies ; and, while he pertinaciously used his influence with his sovereign, to mitigate the severity of the judgments against the non-conformists,3 as a legislator he resisted the sweeping enactment of persecuting laws.1 In the career of discovery, his perseverance was never baffled by losses. He joined in the risks of Gilbert's expedition; contributed to the discoveries of Davis in the northwest; and himself personally explored "the insular regions and broken world" of Guiana. The sincerity of his belief in the wealth of the latter country has been unreasonably questioned. If Elizabeth had hoped for a hyperborean Peru in the arctic seas of America, why might not Raleigh expect to find the city of gold on the banks of the Oronoco? His lavish efforts in colonizing the soil of our republic, his sagacity which enjoined a settlement within the Chesapeake bay, the publications of Hariot and Hakluyt which he countenanced, if followed by losses to himself, diffused over England a knowledge of America, and an inter 1 Tytler, p. 238, 239. 4 Thomson, p. 55; Oldys, p. 2 D'Ewes, p. 646; Tytler, p. 239. 165, 166; D'Ewes, p. 517; Tytler, 3 Oldys, p. 137-139. p. 122. CHAP. est in its destinies, and sowed the seeds, of which III. the fruits were to ripen during his lifetime, though not for him. Raleigh had suffered from palsy1 before his last expedition. He returned broken-hearted by the defeat of his hopes, by the decay of his health, and by the death of his eldest son. What shall be said of King James, who would open to an aged paralytic no other hope of liberty but through success in the discovery of mines in Guiana? What shall be said of a monarch, who could at that time, under a sentence which was originally unjust, and which had slumbered for fifteen years, order the execution of the decrepid man, whose genius and valor shone brilliantly through the ravages of physical decay, and whose English heart, within a palsied frame, still beat with an undying love for his country? 2 The judgments of the tribunals of the Old World are often reversed at the bar of public opinion in the New. The family of the chief author of early colonization in the United States was reduced to beggary by the government of England, and he himself was beheaded. After a lapse of nearly two 1792. centuries, the state of North-Carolina, by a solemn act of legislation, revived in its capital, "THE CITY OF RALEIGH," and thus expressed its confidence in the 1 Thomson's Appendix, note U. The original document. 2 Hume, Rapin, Lingard are less favorable to Raleigh. Even Hallam, v. i. p. 482-484, vindicates him with wavering boldness. A careful comparison of the accounts of these historians, the trial, and the biographies of Raleigh, proves him to have been, on his trial, a victim of jealousy, and entirely innocent of crime. No doubt he despised King James. See Tytler, p. 235-290. 3 Laws of North-Carolina, session of 1792, c. xiv. GOSNOLD'S VOYAGE TO NEW-ENGLAND. 127 III. integrity and a grateful' respect for the memory of CHAP. the extraordinary man, whose name is indissolubly connected with the early period of its history. Some traffic with Virginia may perhaps have been continued. But at the north, the connexion of the English merchants was become so intimate, that, in 1593, Sir Walter Raleigh, in the house of commons, 1593. declared the fishing of Newfoundland to be the stay of the west countries. These voyages and the previous exertions of Raleigh had trained men for the career of discovery; and Bartholomew Gosnold, who, perhaps, had already sailed to Virginia,2 in the usual route, by the Canaries and West Indies, now conceived the idea of a direct voyage to America ; and had well nigh secured to New-England the honor of the first permanent English colony. Sail- 1603. ing in a small bark, directly across the Atlantic, in seven weeks he reached the continent of America in the bay of Massachusetts, not far to the north of Nahant. He failed to observe a good harbor, and, standing for the south, discovered the promontory, which he called Cape Cod; a name, which would not yield to that of the next monarch of England. Here, he and four of his men landed; Cape Cod was the first spot in New-England ever trod by Englishmen. Doubling the cape, and passing Nan 1 D'Ewes' Journal, p. 509. 2 Beverley's Virginia, p. 10, second edition; Oldmixon, v. i. p. 218; Belknap's Biog. v. i. p. 101; Baylies, part iv. p. 153, 154. Belknap's Biog. v. ii. p. 103; Williamson's Maine, v. i. p. 184, 185. 4 Grahame, in his United States, v. i. p. 38, in a note, is led into error by Oldmixon, v. i. p. 25, first edition. Sir Francis Drake was in New-Albion, on the Pacific, in June, 1579, but not in New-England. From Virginia he sailed directly homewards. Mar. 26. May 14. III. May 24. CHAP. tucket, they again landed on a little island, now called No Man's Land, and afterwards passed round 1603. the promontory of Gay Head, naming it Dover Cliff. At length they entered Buzzard's Bay, a stately sound, which they called Gosnold's Hope. The westernmost of the islands was named Elizabeth, from the queen, a name, which has been transferred to the whole group. Here they beheld the rank vegetation of a virgin soil; the noble forests; the wild fruits and the flowers, bursting from the earth; the eglantine, the thorn, and the honeysuckle, the wild pea, the tansy, and young sassafras; strawberries, raspberries, grape-vines, all in profusion. There is on the island a pond, and within it lies a rocky islet; this was the position, which the adventurers selected for their residence. Here they built their storehouse and their fort; and here the foundations of the first New-England colony were to be laid. The natural features remain unchanged; the island, the pond, the islet, are all yet visible; the forests are gone; the shrubs are as luxuriant as of old; but it requires a believing eye to discern the ruins of the fort.1 A traffic with the natives on the main land, soon enabled Gosnold to complete his freight, which consisted chiefly of sassafras root, then greatly esteemed in pharmacy, as a sovereign panacea. The little band, which was to have nestled on the Elizabeth islands, finding their friends about to embark for Europe, despaired of obtaining seasonable supplies of 1 I write advisedly, notwith- knap's American Biography, v. standing the statement in Bel- ii. p. 110. |