driving, that promised better hope, our men being worsted with
labour and watchings, and our ship so open everywhere, all her
bulkheads rent, and her very cook-room of brick shaken down into
powder.

Such were the miseries of navigation in the palmy days of English
adventure by sea. The end of it was that about thirty vessels crept back
to Falmouth and Tor Bay, some were lost altogether, and Raleigh, with
the remainder, found harbour on July 18 at Plymouth. For a month they
lay there, recovering their forces, and Essex, whose own ship was at
Falmouth, came over to Plymouth and was Raleigh's guest on the 'War
Sprite.' Raleigh writes to Cecil: 'I should have taken it unkindly if my
Lord had taken up any other lodging till the "Lion" come: and now her
Majesty may be sure his Lordship shall sleep somewhat the sounder,
though he fare the worse, by being with me, for I am an excellent
watchman at sea.' In this same letter, dated July 26, 1597, the fatal
name of Cobham first appears in the correspondence of Raleigh: 'I pray
vouchsafe,' he says, 'to remember me in all affection to my Lord
Cobham.'

On August 18, in the face of a westerly wind, the fleet put out once
more from Plymouth. In the Bay of Biscay the 'St. Andrew' and the 'St.
Matthew' were disabled, and had to be left behind at La Rochelle. Off
the coast of Portugal, Raleigh himself had a serious accident, for his
mainyard snapped across, and he had to put in for help by the Rock of
Lisbon, in company with the 'Dreadnought.' Essex left a letter saying
that Raleigh must follow him as fast as he could to the Azores, and on
September 8 the 'War Sprite' came in view of Terceira. On the 15th
Raleigh's squadron joined the main fleet under Essex at Flores.

The distress of the voyage and its separations had told upon the temper
of Essex, while he was surrounded by those who were eager to poison his
mind with suspicion of Raleigh. When the latter dined with Essex in the
'Repulse' on the 15th, the Earl with his usual impulsiveness made a
clean breast of his 'conjectures and surmises,' letting Raleigh know the
very names of those scandalous and cankered persons who had ventured to
accuse him, and assuring him that he rejected their counsel. On this day
or the next a pinnace from India brought the news that the yearly fleet
was changing its usual course, and would arrive farther south in the
Azores. A council of war was held in the 'Repulse,' and it was resolved