in
Guiana. He seems never to have actually entered. From a tribe on the
confines he received gifts of gold images and ornaments which he sent to
King Philip by his officer Domingo de Vera. But other Indians on the
borders blocked further progress by firing the savannahs. He was forced
to retire to Trinidad, of which he was appointed Governor. From Trinidad
he concerted raids on the mainland. One of his captains ascended the
Orinoko for some distance, and on April 23, 1593, took formal possession
of the country for Spain. Ralegh's own subsequent experience proved that
individual Spaniards had stolen in, searching for gold. He questioned
seamen who had been in or near this wonderful land. He studied every
published narrative which touched upon it. A treatise, never printed,
and now lost, which he had himself composed on the West Indies, may have
embodied the results of his enquiries. The information he collected
filled him at once with admiration for the invincible constancy, as he
described it, of the Spaniards, and with hatred of their rapacity and
cruelty. He abhorred their barbarous treatment of the native owners of
the New World. As always, he could not comprehend by what right they
claimed a monopoly of its sovereignty for themselves against the rest of
Europe.

Lady Ralegh perceived the bent of his thoughts. She wrote in February,
1594, to invoke the aid of Cecil, in diverting her husband from the
perilous temptation. I reproduce her letter in the original spelling: 'I
hope for my sake you will rather draw sur watar towardes the est then
heulp hyme forward touard the soonsett, if ani respecke to me or love to
him be not forgotten. But everi monthe hath his flower and everi season
his contentement, and you greate counselares ar so full of new councels
as you are steddi in nothing; but wee poore soules that hath bought
sorrow at a high price desiar, and can be plesed with, the same
misfortun wee hold, fering alltarracions will but multiply misseri, of
wich we have allredi felte sufficiant. I knoo unly your parswadcions ar
of efecke with him, and hild as orrekeles tied to them by Love; therfore
I humbelle besiech you rathar stay him then furdar him. By the wich you
shall bind me for ever. As yet you have ever geveng me caus.'

[Sidenote: _A Royal Commission._]

If Cecil tried dissuasion, he did not succeed. In the course of 1594
Ralegh sent out as a pioneer his 'most valiant and honest' old officer,
Captain Whiddon