The West Indies and the Spanish Main. James Rodway
sledges, or the images pulled down from the temples. It was so easily defensible that it could be protected by two forts at the mouth of a river, and thus the whole empire be guarded. The country was already discovered, many nations won to Her Majesty's love and obedience, and those Spaniards who had laboured on the conquest were beaten, discouraged, and disgraced. If Her Majesty took up the enterprise, he doubted not that after the first or second year there would be a Contractation House for Guiana in London, with larger receipts than that for the Indies at Seville.
Such was Ralegh's dream. Another Peru to be conquered, and England to be raised to the highest point of wealth and importance. But unfortunately he could get no assistance to carry out the grand project. Yet he was undoubtedly sincere, for did he not send out two expeditions under Captains Keymis and Berrie the following year, to assure the Indians that he had not forgotten them? Keymis found one tribe keeping a festival in honour of the great princess of the north, and anxiously waiting for the return of Gualtero, which name, by the by, was similar to their word for friend. They made fires, and, sitting in their hammocks, each man with his companion, they recounted the worthy deeds and deaths of their ancestors, execrating their enemies most spitefully, and magnifying their friends with all the titles of honour they could devise. Thus they sat talking and smoking tobacco until their cigars (their measure of time) went out, during which they were not to be disturbed, "for this is their religion and prayers which they now celebrated, keeping a precise fast one whole day in honour of the great princess of the north, their patron and defender."
The explorations of Ralegh and his captains were published all over Europe, with the result that attention was generally drawn to Guiana. Already some Dutchmen had been trading on the coast for many years, and it was even reported that they had established a post in the river Pomeroon, the centre of the province of Caribana. As early as 1542 Flemings had settled at Araya on the coast of Venezuela, where they collected salt and were left undisturbed as long as the Netherlands belonged to Spain. Ralegh seems to have purposely ignored the presence of these people in Guiana, probably to prevent any question of prior rights on the part of a friendly nation. But, after all, the Dutchmen could only have been there on their own responsibility, and their temporary occupation had no meaning from a national point of view.
Now that Guiana was made known, vessels of other nationalities went trading along the coast, everywhere meeting with a hearty welcome from the Indians as long as the visitors were not Spanish. They were only so many additions to their friends—their enemies were confined to Trinidad and the Orinoco, leaving the whole coast of Guiana to its rightful owners. In fact, the Spaniards could no more subdue the Caribs of the Main than they could those of the islands. Only in Trinidad, where the Arawak was employed against the cannibal, was a settlement made possible.
Ralegh was unable to carry out his great project, but others were not backward in attempting to settle in the country. First came Charles Leigh, who in 1604 founded a colony in the river Oyapok, which failed partly from the lack of assistance from England and partly from too great a dependence on the promises of the Indians to supply food. Sickness followed on starvation, Leigh died, and a mutiny took place, after which the survivors got back to Europe in a Dutch trader, which fortunately arrived when all hope of succour had been abandoned. Robert Harcourt followed to the same river in 1609, like Leigh, getting promises of assistance from the Indians by using the name of Ralegh. With their consent he took possession of the country, "by twig and turf," in the name of King James. This ceremony was performed by first cutting a branch from a tree, and then turning up a sod with the sword, thus claiming everything in and on the earth.
Harcourt's colony lasted several years, and in 1613 he received from James the First a grant of all that part of Guiana lying between the rivers Amazons and Essequebo, on the usual condition of the fifth of all gold and silver being handed over to the king. In the same year the Dutch trading factory at Kyk-over-al on the river Essequebo was established, and this was probably the reason why the English grant made that river the boundary of their possessions, leaving the Hollander to establish himself between the Essequebo and the Orinoco.
Meanwhile, in 1603, poor Ralegh had been tried on a charge of aiding and abetting the plot to raise Arabella Stuart to the throne of England, on the death of Queen Elizabeth. Any one who reads the account of his trial will perceive at once the absurdity of the charge, yet Ralegh was convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. However, even with all his hatred for the knight, King James dared not carry out the sentence, but instead, kept him imprisoned in the Tower.
Here Ralegh still hankered after the treasures of Guiana, and in 1611 he made a proposition to the Government to send Captain Keymis to find the rich gold mine which had been pointed out to him by an Indian. If Keymis should live to arrive at the place and fail to bring half a ton or more of that rich ore of which he had shown a sample, Ralegh himself would bear all the expense of the journey. "Though," said he, "it be a difficult matter of exceeding difficulty for any man to find the same acre of ground again, in a country desolate and overgrown, which he hath seen but once, and that sixteen years since—which were hard enough to do upon Salisbury Plain—yet that your lordships may be satisfied of the truth, I am contented to adventure all I have (but my reputation) upon Keymis's memory."
This proposition was rejected, and the poor knight lingered on in the Tower, attended during part of the time by two Guiana Indians, Harry and Leonard Regapo. In 1616, however, he at last recovered his liberty on condition that he went to Guiana and brought back gold, but at the same time the king refused to pardon him. Nevertheless he took up the matter with an amount of enthusiasm which showed his entire confidence in its ultimate success. All his own money and as much of his wife's as could be spared was spent in fitting out the expedition, and he also got contributions from many of his friends. The king even went so far as to give him a commission to undertake a voyage to the south parts of America, or elsewhere in America, inhabited by heathen and savage people, with all the necessary rights of government and jurisdiction; yet with all this the old sentence hung over his head.
The expedition of fourteen vessels started in March, 1617, but even from the commencement the voyage was disastrous. First a gale was encountered, which drove the fleet to take refuge in Cork Harbour, where it lay until August. This seems to have put a damper on the commander, who now began to realise how much depended on his success. He was twenty-two years older than when he went on his first voyage to Guiana, and most of those years he had spent in captivity. Is it any wonder that when the excitement attendant on his release had gone off he became sick and utterly prostrated? Such was his condition when the fleet arrived at Cayenne, where he went to look for his Indian boy Harry, who had gone back to his people and was now wanted as interpreter.
So low was Ralegh's condition that he had to be carried ashore, and although he soon became a little better under a course of fresh meat and fruits, he never wholly recovered. So great was his weakness, both of mind and body, that he deputed Keymis to lead the party up the Orinoco, while he rested at Cayenne; in a few days he would go on to Trinidad and wait there until they returned. Keymis accordingly went on, accompanied by young Walter Ralegh, a number of other gentlemen, and four hundred soldiers. They arrived at the site of the supposed gold mine without accident, but found that since the first expedition some Spaniards had built "a town of sticks, covered with leaves," and this stood in the way of their approach to the mine. Possibly Keymis now thought of his master's expression in regard to St. Joseph, and did not care to "savour of an ass" by leaving the enemy to interfere with his work. He therefore attacked this town of St. Thome, and set it on fire. Unfortunately young Ralegh was killed in the fight, and the thought of how he could tell this bad news preyed upon the mind of Keymis until all relish for gold-seeking was lost. The Spaniards took to the bush, from whence they sallied forth on any small party of the English, and ultimately put them into a state of confusion. The mine could not be found, the adventurers began to complain that they had been fooled, and Keymis was so troubled that he seemed neither to know nor care anything about treasure-seeking.
Ralegh had meanwhile arrived in the Gulf of Paria, where he received the news of the burning of St. Thome and the death of his son from some Indians. Presently Keymis arrived, utterly dejected, to find his master broken down and more woe-begone than himself. Ralegh said he was undone, and that Keymis was entirely to blame. Not even a sample of ore—the king would believe him a liar and a cheat. Then,