land. It was free from white occupants, and
had escaped spoliation. It was a region in which, he was convinced,
Englishmen could thrive and be happy. With his military instinct he had
truly discerned how easily it might be guarded by a couple of forts on
sites commanding the entrance into the Orinoko.

[Sidenote: _Spanish Plantation of San Thome._]

[Sidenote: _Another of Keymis's Gold Mines._]

He trusted she who was the lady of ladies would be inspired to accept
the direct dominion. If not, he was ready to judge those men worthy to
be its kings who by her grace and leave should undertake the task of
themselves. Unlicensed Undertakers were not wanting, much to his
disgust. He wrote to Cecil in November, 1595, that he heard Mr. Dudley
and others were sending ships. He besought that none be suffered to soil
the enterprise, and that he should be thought worthy to govern the
country he had discovered. The whole duty of sovereignty properly, he
held, appertained to the State. If it could not afford the requisite
funds, he expounded in an unpublished essay how a few hundred English
artificers might teach the Indians to arm themselves against the
Spaniards. By an able and generous argument he reconciled the
indefeasible right of the natives to their territory with the industrial
colony he was planning. As the State could in no shape be induced to
interest itself, he maintained the English connexion with Guiana at his
private charge. In the January of 1596 he despatched Keymis with the
Darling and Discovery. They were laden with merchandise to comfort and
assure the people that they should not yield to any composition with
other nations. Burleigh and Robert Cecil were joint adventurers with
Ralegh. Burleigh advanced L500, and his son lent a new ship bravely
furnished. Keymis learnt they had been forestalled. King Philip,
perturbed by the tidings of Ralegh's enterprise, had granted Berreo's
application by de Vera for troops. On May 16, 1595, before Ralegh's own
return, Sir John Gilbert heard from a Frenchman that the King had sent
forces to el Dorado. A powerful force for the conquest of Manoa arrived
in Trinidad in 1596. Finally, it is true, the majority miserably
perished, and the expedition effected nothing. But a village had already
been planted near the port of Topiowari, who, Keymis heard, was dead.
This settlement, known as San Thome, Santo Thome, San Tome, Santo Tomas,
or St. Thomas, did not owe its actual beginning t