e pursuit was felt. The Queen not rarely
adventured, and looked for the lion's share of the spoil. Robert Cecil,
after he had succeeded to his father's ascendency, was willing to
speculate, if his association might be kept secret: 'For though, I thank
God, I have no other meaning than becometh an honest man in any of my
actions, yet that which were another man's _Pater noster_, would be
accounted in me a charm.' Ralegh's views and character obliged him to no
bashful dissimulation of the practice. To him privateering seemed
strictly legal, and unequivocally laudable. He boasted in 1586 that he
had consumed the best part of his fortune in abating the tyrannous
prosperity of Spain. He acted as much in defence and retaliation as for
offence. He stated in the House of Commons in 1592 that the West Country
had, since the Parliament began, been plundered of the worth of
L440,000. In 1603 he wrote that a few Dunkirk privateers under Spanish
protection had 'taken from the West Country merchants within two years
above three thousand vessels, beside all they had gotten from the rest
of the ports of England.' He himself, as the State Papers testify, had
often to lament losses of ships through Spanish and French privateers.
Public opinion entirely justified the vigour with which he conducted his
retaliation. If he were unpopular among his countrymen, or any section
of them, the fact is not to be explained by the employment of his riches
and influence in onslaughts upon foreign commerce. As he has written in
his History, Englishmen never objected to the most fearful odds, when
'royals of plate and pistolets' were in view. They might have been
expected to be grateful to a leading promoter of lucratively perilous
enterprises; and in the West they were.

CHAPTER VI.

PATRON AND COURTIER (1583-1590).

[Sidenote: _Hakluyt._]

In social and private as well as public life Ralegh was open-handed and
liberal in kind offices. Those are not unpopular characteristics. He was
a patron of letters. His name may be read in many dedications. Few of
them can have been gratuitous. Martin Bassaniere of Paris inscribed to
him very appropriately his publication of Laudonniere's narrative of the
French expedition to Florida. Richard Hakluyt, junior, during his
residence in France, had lighted upon Laudonniere's manuscript. From him
Bassaniere received it. He translated the volume in 1587, and dedicated
his version to Ralegh. Hakluyt had to than