ring imprisonment, and
braving threats of torture, with a noble fidelity. He suffered yet more
cruel penalties for having vaunted the mineral riches of Guiana to
enhance the merit of its discovery, until the mirage ended by beguiling
his admired chief into irretrievable ruin. Not even death redeemed his
memory. His comrades decried him as an impostor and deceiver. 'False to
all men, a hateful fellow, a mere Machiavel,' Captain Parker called him,
because he did not find his gold mine. Ralegh, for whom he had ventured
and borne much, writes of him as an obstinate, self-willed man, and of
his doleful end with a coldness which only gnawing despair can explain,
not excuse.

[Sidenote: _Ship Gossip._]

The expedition had been vexed by storms and fever on its passage to
Guiana. None of its objects on the Orinoko had been attained. To the
last it continued disappointing and disappointed; 'continually pursued
with misfortunes,' wrote Beecher to Camden, 'as if to prove that God did
take pleasure to confound the wisdom of men.' Ralegh already had not
been free from danger of discord in his fleet. A page had invented a
tale that he kept in his cabin L24,200, which had led some of his crew
to conspire to leave him ashore in Trinidad, and sail away. But hitherto
he had maintained his personal ascendency. The collapse at San Thome
shook the faith of his captains in him. Henceforth they expected him to
prefer their wisdom to his own. Whitney and Wollaston planned the
plunder of homeward-bound Spanish ships. They would have liked him to
abet them. They warned him that he was a lost man if he returned to
England. When they could not persuade him, they resolved to go off by
themselves. At Grenada they carried their intention into effect. Mr.
Jones, chaplain of the Flying Chudleigh, says Ralegh authorised any
captain to part if he pleased, as the aim of the voyage could no longer
be accomplished. The chaplain may have had the offer narrated to him by
a captain who desired his freedom. In itself it is too inconsistent with
all we know of Ralegh's views to be credible. He showed the utmost
anxiety to keep his forces together. For this purpose he was willing to
let restless spirits hope for indulgence of their thirst both for spoil
and for revenge by a combined attempt upon the Mexico fleet. Out of the
chaos of ship gossip, the private wishes of officers, and conjectures
about their commander's probable intentions, James's apologists wove a