ng to him the King's
sanction of warlike preparations implied no understanding that it might
be necessary to use them. According to him the commission to conduct an
armed squadron and soldiery to a mine on the banks of the Orinoko
conveyed no right to break a hostile Spanish blockade of the river.
According to him, though in defiance of contemporary testimony, Ralegh
alone employed violence; the San Thome garrison 'offered no provocation
whatever, except an attitude of self-defence.' On these principles,
while he laments the tardiness of its appearance, he necessarily
considers the _Declaration_ straightforward, honest, and convincing.
National opinion judged differently. It treated the whole as a piece of
special pleading. In fairness it must be granted that, had it been much
more cogent, it would have had as little effect. Chamberlain had
prophetically written to Carleton on November 21, while it was known to
be in process of composition, that it 'will not be believed, unless it
be well proved.'

CHAPTER XXXII.

CONTEMPORARY AND FINAL JUDGMENTS.

[Sidenote: _Popular Indignation._]

[Sidenote: _Its Durability._]

More judicious or less prejudiced observers than James and his
confidants would have suspected earlier the rise of the popular tide of
sympathy and indignation. Strangers had remarked the tendency before the
execution. A Spanish Dominican friar in England on a secret political
mission had, Chamberlain told Carleton in October, been labouring for
Ralegh's life from dread of the ill-will towards Spain which his death
would cause. Many Englishmen were much nimbler than official and
officious courtiers in perceiving the blunder. A great lord in the
Tower, who may be presumed to have been Northumberland, another
correspondent of Carleton's told him, had observed that, if the Spanish
match went on, Spain had better have given L100,000 than have had him
killed; and if not, that England had better have given L100,000 than
have killed him. Pory assured Carleton, writing on October 31, that
Ralegh's death would do more harm to the faction that procured it than
ever he did in his life. As soon as his head was off, the authorities
had to be hard at work suppressing ballads which were being sung in the
streets against his adversaries. The jeer of the London goldsmith,
Wiemark, 'the constant Paul's-walker,' that he wished such a head as had
just been severed from Ralegh's body had been on Master Secretary's
s