imself and had brought home word of the spices and
great wealth of the East Indies. But they were very far off, and the
cost of fitting out ships for so long a voyage was very great; great,
too, were the dangers these ships would have to face--dangers of sea
and storm, of savage people and an unknown land; could any one merchant
risk so much? The Lord Mayor called together some London merchants to
consider this question, and they answered, "The losses which would ruin
one would hardly be felt if {51} borne by many; let us, then, form a
company to trade with the East." Thus began the East India Company;
its birthday was the very last day of the sixteenth century. It had at
first only four ships and less than five hundred men; before it came to
an end, two hundred and fifty-eight years later, it was ruling nearly
all India.

I have another story to tell you which began nearly twenty years before
the East India Company's birthday. In December, 1581, a young man came
to Placentia, bringing letters to the Queen from her soldiers in
Ireland, where there had been war and great trouble. He was carefully
dressed and wore a new plush cloak, for this was, I think, his first
visit to Court, and the Queen loved to see everyone about her well and
beautifully dressed. Perhaps he had only just arrived; perhaps the
Queen had been out in her barge and was coming up from the riverside to
her palace; however it may have been, she came to a very muddy place in
the road, which is not at all surprising, since in December there is
often a great deal of rain. The Queen looked at the puddles and
stopped, and the young man sprang forward, swept his plush cloak from
his shoulders and spread it over the mud for her to step on that so she
might pass on without soiling her shoes. I feel sure you know the
young man's name--it was Walter Raleigh. Is it any wonder that he
became a great favourite with the Queen? An old story says that soon
after this he wrote with a diamond on the glass of a window in the
palace:--

"Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall."

{52}

And the Queen saw it, and wrote beneath it:--

"If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all."

His heart did not fail him; he became captain of her Guard, and he rose
higher and higher in her service.

Raleigh was the first Englishman to think how splendid it would be if
some of his countrymen would go to America and make homes for
themselves there, and so build up a gre