abandon the design. He
demanded supplies at Cumana, where he left Berreo, at St. Mary's, and at
Rio de la Hacha. Being refused them, he sacked and burnt all three.
Incidentally he mentions that he found 'not a real of plate.' But he had
punished the settlements for their churlishness, not for the sake of
booty. He did not care to look out for spoil. 'It would have sorted
ill,' he wrote, 'with the offices of honour which by her Majesty's grace
I hold this day in England, to run from cape to cape for the pillage of
ordinary prizes.' On July 13, off Cuba, Preston and Sommers met, as
states their chronicler, the Honourable Knight Sir Walter Ralegh
returning from his painful and happy discovery of Guiana, and his
surprise of the Isle of Trinidad. Their two ships and his three remained
in company for twenty days. In August, 1595, he is understood to have
been back in England, 'a beggar,' as he expressed it, 'and withered.'
His wife had been watching over his interests. Her letter to Cecil of
March 20, 1595, is pleasantly characteristic. She explained in it her
urgency in a suit against Lord Huntingdon: 'I rather choose this time to
follow it in Sir Walter's absence, that myself may bear the unkindness,
and not he.' The subject of the proceedings was a refusal by the Earl to
surrender for Ralegh's use Lady Ralegh's portion, which was in his
hands, and had become payable through her mother's death.

[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Book on Guiana._]

[Sidenote: _Vindication of his Veracity._]

The return did not excite much popular sensation. Cecil seems to have
doubted the genuineness or value of the minerals. He cannot have
profited by his investment in the adventure, and was not disposed to be
fervent in its praise. Hakluyt remarks how careful the cold Secretary of
State was not to be overtaken with any partial affection for the
planting of Guiana. Even in Devonshire there seem to have circulated
'slanderous and scoffing speeches touching Sir Walter's late occasion at
sea.' His enemies before he went predicted he would never return, but
would become 'a servant to the Spanish King.' Now that he was back, they
depreciated the importance of the enterprise, and especially his part in
it. Very absurdly they contended that he was too easeful and sensual to
have undertaken a journey of so great travail, and had been hiding in
Cornwall. Some gold he had helped to dig out with his own dagger. A
London alderman persuaded an officer of the Mint