m. Men had leisure to reflect on the hardship,
not to say injustice, of his sentence; they pitied his active and
enterprising spirit, which languished in the rigors of confinement; they
were struck with the extensive genius of the man, who, being educated
amidst naval and military enterprises, had surpassed, in the pursuits of
literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and
they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which, at his age, and under his
circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a work
as his History of the World. To increase these favorable dispositions,
on which he built the hopes of recovering his liberty, he spread the
report of a golden mine which he had discovered in Guiana, and which was
sufficient, according to his representation, not only to enrich all the
adventurers, but to afford immense treasures to the nation. The king
gave little credit to these mighty promises; both because he believed
that no such mine as the one described was any where in nature, and
because he considered Raleigh as a man of desperate fortunes, whose
business it was, by any means, to procure his freedom, and to reinstate
himself in credit and authority. Thinking, however, that he had already
undergone sufficient punishment, he released him from the Tower; and
when his vaunts of the golden mine had induced multitudes to engage with
him, the king gave them permission to try the adventure, and, at their
desire, he conferred on Raleigh authority over his fellow-adventurers.
Though strongly solicited, he still refused to grant him a pardon, which
he deemed a natural consequence, when he was intrusted with power
and command. But James declared himself still diffident of Raleigh's
intentions; and he meant, he said, to reserve the former sentence, as a
check upon his future behavior.

Raleigh well knew that it was far from the king's purpose to invade any
of the Spanish settlements: he therefore firmly denied that Spain had
planted any colonies on that part of the coast where his mine lay. When
Gondomar, the ambassador of that nation, alarmed at his preparations,
carried complaints to the king, Raleigh still protested the innocence of
his intentions; and James assured Gondomar, that he durst not form
any hostile attempt, but should pay with his head for so audacious an
enterprise. The minister, however, concluding that twelve armed vessels
were not fitted out without some purpose of invasion, c