ences for drying and packing fish. He was relieving miners from
extortions by merchants. He was advocating an Irish policy of terrorism,
in the course perhaps of a visit to Munster, as Mr. Payne Collier has
inferred from the language of his letter itself, rather more confidently
than it warrants, though a current rumour that he was out of heart at
the moment with his Court prospects favours the hypothesis of
self-banishment. At any rate, in October, 1598, he was writing to
shame-faced Cecil in defence, it is sad to say, of official connivance
at the assassination of Irish rebels: 'It can be no disgrace if it were
known that the killing of a rebel were practised. But, for yourself, you
are not to be touched in the matter.' In his History he condemns lying
in wait privily for blood as wilful murder. In return for his activity
and his fierceness he was recognised as both hostile and important
enough to be singled out as a mark for the Ultramontane fury which
kindled and fed Irish revolts. That at times assumed strange forms. His
name is joined in 1597 with those of Cecil and the Lord Admiral as among
the Englishmen whom Tempest the Jesuit destined to destruction. The
instrument was a poison, for which the sole antidote was the utterance
of the word Eguldarphe three times before drinking. Then the glass would
break, or the wine, if in a silver cup, would froth and fume.

[Sidenote: _Counsellor and Debater._]

Public affairs and private affairs, small things and great, filled
Ralegh's life to overflowing. They were all transacted at high pressure.
Everything he did he did with his whole might. He always 'toiled
terribly.' He sat in the House of Commons in the winter of 1597-8, and
his name often occurs in reports of debates and committees. He spoke on
the infesting of the country by pretended soldiers and sailors, on the
cognate subject of sturdy vagabonds and beggars, on the fruitful topic
of the Queen's debts. He took part in the burning controversy whether
the Lords were entitled to receive, seated, Members sent by the Lower
House to confer on a Bill, instead of coming down to the bar. He was
being consulted by the Privy Council on the right way of dealing with
Tyrone's Ulster rising. He was praying a licence for a translation from
the Italian of a history of King Sebastian's and Thomas Stukely's
invasion of Morocco, on the ground that he had perused and corrected
something therein. He was soliciting and obtaining a Gover