preaching war against them on these very grounds, and setting others
to preach it also. Good old Hariot (Raleigh's mathematical tutor,
whom he sent to Virginia) re-echoes his pupil's trumpet-blast.
Hooker, in his epistle dedicatory of his Irish History, strikes the
same note, and a right noble one it is. 'These Spaniards are trying
to build up a world-tyranny by rapine and cruelty. You, sir, call on
us to deliver the earth from them, by doing justly and loving mercy;
and we will obey you!' is the answer which Raleigh receives, as far
as I can find, from every nobler-natured Englishman.

It was an immense conception: a glorious one: it stood out so
clear: there was no mistake about its being the absolutely right,
wise, patriotic thing; and so feasible, too, if Raleigh could but
find 'six cents hommes qui savaient mourir.' But that was just what
he could not find. He could draw round him, and did, by the
spiritual magnetism of his genius, many a noble soul; but he could
not organise them, as he seems to have tried to do, into a coherent
body. The English spirit of independent action, never stronger than
in that age, and most wisely encouraged, for other reasons, by good
Queen Bess, was too strong for him. His pupils will 'fight on their
own hook' like so many Yankee rangers: quarrel with each other:
grumble at him. For the truth is, he demands of them too high a
standard of thought and purpose. He is often a whole heaven above
them in the hugeness of his imagination, the nobleness of his motive;
and Don Quixote can often find no better squire than Sancho Panza.
Even glorious Sir Richard Grenvile makes a mistake: burns an Indian
village because they steal a silver cup; throws back the colonisation
of Virginia ten years with his over-strict notions of discipline and
retributive justice; and Raleigh requites him for his offence by
embalming him, his valour and his death, not in immortal verse, but