presence of that breezy "man of desperate fortunes." A very excellent
example of the opposition of the two types is offered by the discussion
about the golden city of Manoa. Raleigh believed, and after all
disappointments continued to be sure, that in the heart of the swamps of
the Orinoco there existed a citadel of magnificent wealth, an emporium
of diamonds and gold, from which Spain was secretly drawing the riches
with which she proposed to overwhelm civilisation. He struggled for
nearly a quarter of a century to win this marvellous city for England.
James I. chopped in with his cold logic, and declined to believe that
any golden mine existed in Guiana "anywhere in nature," as he craftily
said. When Raleigh returned after his last miserable failure in May
1617, the monarch spared no sneer and no reproof to the pirate of the
seas. Of course, the King was right; there was no mine of diamonds, no
golden city. But the immense treasures that haunted Raleigh's dreams
were more real than reality; they existed in the future; he looked far
ahead, and our sympathies to-day, and our gratitude also, are all for
the noble and valorous knight who sailed out into the West searching for
an unknown El Dorado.

It is not so easy to defend the character of our hero against those who,
like Hume, have objected to his methods in the prosecution of his
designs. To Hume, as to many others before and since, Raleigh seemed
"extremely defective either in solid understanding, or morals, or both."
The excellent historians of the eighteenth century could not make up
their minds whether he was a hero or an impostor. Did he believe in the
Guiana mine, or was he, through all those strenuous years, hoodwinking
the world? Had he any purpose, save to plunder the Spaniard? Perhaps his
own family doubted his sanity, for his son Walter, when he charged the
Spanish settlement at San Thomé, pointed to the house of the little
colony and shouted to his men: "Come on, this is the true mine, and none