science of war, and which were unconsciously destined to be afterwards recorded in his History of the World,' where he recurs, wherever he has an opportunity, to his own military experiences. He appears, after a short interval, to have also served for some time in the Netherlands, under Sir John Norris; but his biographers have not been able to recover any account of his services in that quarter, nor has he himself made any allusions to them, as in the case of his French campaigns.

Raleigh had as yet done nothing to connect his name with the immediate service of his country, when the outbreak of a rebellion in Ireland induced him to resume his sword in that lost 'land-that commonwealth of common woe;' as he, in one of his letters, described it. We accordingly find him, in 1580, commanding a company of the royal troops; and he speedily became distinguished, both for valour and skill, in those sudden and rapid movements and surprises which the service required. His exploits were so conspicuous, as to be particularly and circumstantially recited by the historians of the period. He continued in this employment for several years, solely for the purpose of recommending himself to notice; for in a letter to the Earl of Leicester, then Elizabeth's prime favourite, by whom he appears to have been patronised, he says plainly, that were it not for his hopes that way, he would disdain such a service as much as he would to keep sheep.' Its poverty was not its worst characteristic. It was marked throughout by ruthless cruelty; but the massacre, in a fort erected by them, of some hundreds of Spaniards, who had fought in aid of the rebels, and surrendered at discretion to the Lord-Deputy Gray, was a fouler and more revolting act than ever stained the name of England; and the recollection of which ought to have shut the mouths of those who, in a long subsequent age, railed so stoutly against the massacre of the Turks at Acre, by the command of Buonaparte. It is mortifying to think that Raleigh was one of the officers to whom the execution of this atrocious deed was committed; and yet more so, that another of the great literary ornaments of that age-the author of the Faerie Queene,' who was then secretary to the Lord-Deputy, and who had not the apology of being under military commandhas attempted to justify it; for in his otherwise beautiful and statesman-like piece on the State of Ireland,' he unscrupulously avers, that that short way was the only way to dispose of 'them." There is no authority, in as far as we know, for allowing Raleigh the honourable distinction of having differed in opinion with his commander, in regard to this unhallowed transaction. Mr Tytler would fain believe that he did. That the Queen strongly disapproved of it is certain; as it also is, that some difference had arisen between Raleigh and the Lord

Deputy, which, after their return to England, was discussed at the Council-Board, in her Majesty's presence; and that the former there maintained his cause with such consummate ability, as well as grace, that, to use the words of Sir Robert Naunton, he got the Queen's ear in a trice.' But this writer, whose authority, had he so expressed himself, would have been perfectly conclusive, does not in the slightest degree intimate either that the point in discussion before the Council related to the massacre, or that the highly favourable impression which Raleigh then made upon the Queen, was owing to his having upheld his disapproval of it.

This was one of the most important and decisive moments of Raleigh's life. His future fortunes were owing chiefly to the feelings which then arose in the breast of his sovereign. Personal recommendations went far with that great princess; and the brave soldier, whose intellectual accomplishments thus 'gained her ear,' was no less remarkable for his imposing exterior. The romantic incident detailed by Fuller as the immediate cause of Raleigh's introduction to and favour with the Queen, is known to all readers of history; and it presents to the imagination a picture so pleasing, and so much in harmony with the characters of both, as to beget a strong reluctance to doubt its reality. But though there seems no reason either to question the fact, or its having produced sentiments favourable to Raleigh, his rapid progress in Elizabeth's esteem was much more probably ascribable to the opportunity afforded for the display, both of his personal qualities and his commanding talents, in the discussion referred to by Naunton. To whatever cause, or combination of causes, his good fortune was owing, the effects were alike speedy and marked; for within some two or three years from the period when he was first noticed at court, he was Knighted, made Captain of the Guard, Seneschal of the county of Cornwall, and Lord Warden of the Stanneries; and these honours were accompanied with the substantial grant of twelve thousand acres of the forfeited principality of the Earls of Desmond, whose rebellious attempts he had assisted to quell; besides a lucrative patent for licensing the venders of wine throughout the kingdom.

Maritime expeditions and colonization were the favourite. undertakings and projects of the more enterprising and active speculators of that stirring period. The ocean and the new world. attracted all their actions and thoughts. The more daring and adventurous fitted out cruisers to intercept the Spanish ships, on their return with rich cargoes from the colonies; whilst those who aimed at plantations, and the extension of commerce, looked to the northern parts of America as the appro

priate field of their nobler exertions. Raleigh participated strongly of both characters; for though abundantly disposed to the courses of the maritime spoiler, his mind was deeply impressed with the more elevated views of the colonial projector. Some of the richest prizes brought into England were captured by ships fitted out by him, or in which he was a sharer. His colonial schemes constitute a marked portion of his singular history.

Some years before that period of his life at which we have arrived-namely, in the short interval which elapsed between his military services abroad and in Ireland-he appears to have engaged to accompany his celebrated half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in a voyage to North America, in prosecution of the patent or commission of plantation-the first granted to any British subject-which the latter had obtained from the Queen. The voyage proved abortive; for the ships were forced to return to port, after encountering various disasters. Soon after the commencement of Raleigh's favour at court, Sir Humphrey had resolved to make another attempt to avail himself of his patent; and his rising half-brother, who was now in a situation to furnish useful aid, was not slow to prove how strongly he participated in the noble views entertained by the other. Thus, in a letter written from Court in May 1583, it is stated that Mr Raleigh, the new favourite, had made an adventure of two thousand pounds, in a ship and furniture thereof,' to form part of the fleet collected by Gilbert for his new expedition. Raleigh's presence at Court was too necessary to allow him to accompany his adventurous brother, who received from the Queen, through the new favourite's' hands, a golden anchor to be worn at his breast;-the only contribution of this great princess to an expedition intended to transplant the arts of England to the waste regions of the new world. The ship built and manned by Raleigh, at so much cost, and which bore his name, joined Sir Humphrey before his departure from Plymouth in June 1583; but within a few days after sailing she left him, and returned to port; the sickness of her crew obliging her, according to the common accounts, to put back. Captain Hayes, the historian of the voyage, expresses himself in somewhat sceptical terms as to the necessity for this separation; and, if sickness was the cause, it would appear, from a brief note written by Gilbert to Sir George Peckham, that the disappointed Admiral was as ignorant of it, as he was indignant at the proceeding. This note, which has been overlooked by Raleigh's biographers, was written in August, after Sir Humphrey's arrival at

Birch's Memoirs of Q. Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 34.

Newfoundland, and is thus expressed: I departed from Plymouth on the 11th of June with five sail, and on the 13th the bark Raleigh ran from me, in fair and clear weather, having a large wind. I pray you solicit my brother Raleigh to make them an example to all knaves. This expedition also proved abortive, and its brave leader perished in a storm by which he was overtaken on his return. He was one of those vigorous and versatile characters peculiar to an age which produced numbers who united in equal degrees the faculties which make men alike fit for speculation and for action. Though the name of his uterine brother, who was considerably his junior, has obtained, and justly, a wider and higher fame, there were strong points of resemblance between them; and the example and instructions of the elder had, in all probability, considerable influence upon the mind and pursuits of the younger. His treatise on the North"West Passage' displays, as Dr Robertson has observed, much ' of that enthusiasm and credulity which excite men to new and hazardous undertakings;' but it might have been added, that he here points out, on just and enlightened principles, the advantages of foreign settlements in proper situations ;-representing them as means of extending and enriching commerce, and of furnishing employment to those needy people who trouble the commonwealth through want at home.'

The fate of his kinsman had no effect in diverting Raleigh's thoughts from those colonial undertakings to which the former fell a victim. Availing himself of his favour with the Queen, he solicited and obtained a patent, investing him with ample powers to appropriate, plant, and govern any territorial possessions he might acquire, in the unoccupied parts of North America. According to information procured by Mr Oldys, this patent was preceded by a Memorial addressed to the Queen and Council, setting forth the utility and policy of the undertaking. Mr Gibbon specifies the want of details respecting his Virginian schemes-which he justly viewed as a characteristic portion of his history-as one of his reasons for abandoning the idea of a life of Raleigh; but there is, in regard to some other important portions of his life, far greater reason to regret that want; for in as far at least as respects the different attempts to plant, made at his expense and under his direction, the narratives reprinted in the invaluable collections of Hackluyt and Purchas furnish full details. It is matter of regret, no doubt, that the Memorial to which Oldys alludes has not been preserved; but Raleigh's general ideas with respect to coloniza

tion, are otherwise sufficiently known. They were the same, in fact, with those entertained by some other enlightened projectors of that period, whose peculiar views and merits have been entirely overlooked by the writers who have commented upon the origin of our American colonies. In Dr Robertson's sketch of their early history, the views of their founders are left unnoticed; and Dr Smith has characterised them as being in no respect different from those of the military adventurers who established the colonies of Spain. The thirst of gold' was, as he truly observes, the only principle of action amongst the latter; but when he says that all the other nations of Europe, the English not less than the rest, were solely actuated by the same desire, he does great injustice to some who, in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, endeavoured to rouse their countrymen to a sense of the advantages to be derived from colonization. It is due to those men, to commemorate with deserved praise the enlightened views disclosed in their writings. The acquisition of mines of gold and silver was not, by any means, the recommendation to colonial enterprise which they held out. New fields of labour in new and propitious climes-new means of employing a superfluous population-new articles of exchange, new markets, and great augmentations of shipping--were the beneficial results which they expected to realize from the plantation of colonies in the new world. We do not mean to say, that these views were constantly and systematically enforced; but only that they constituted with many the grand recommendations to colonial enterprise; thus widely differencing the English projectors from those Spanish adventurers, whose first enquiry on landing in any new country was, whether there was any gold to be found there; and who, according to the information they received concerning this particular, determined either to quit the country or to settle in it.'*

That some of our early colonial adventurers were wholly actuated by the hope of discovering mines, is not to be denied; but that there was a more enlightened class who advocated the utility of foreign settlements upon the grounds we have stated, is equally unquestionable. Of this, the treatises written by Gilbert, Peckham, Carlisle, Harriot, and others, and to be found in the collections above named, furnish decisive proofs. When mines are mentioned, they are not by any means represented as paramount objects; they make less figure, by much, than the ordinary objects of industry and commerce; and those who view them as the grand sources of national wealth, are treated with derision and reproba

* Wealth of Nations, B. iv. c. 7, Part 1.