The plain fact is that Raleigh went, with his eyes open, to take
possession of a country to which he believed that he and King James
had a right, and that James and his favourites, when they, as he
pleads, might have stopped him by a word, let him go, knowing as well
as the Spaniards what he intended; for what purpose, but to have an
excuse for the tragedy which ended all, it is difficult to conceive.
'It is evident,' wisely says Sir Robert Schomburgk, 'that they winked
at consequences which they must have foreseen.'

And here Mr. Napier, on the authority of Count Desmarets, brings a
grave charge against Raleigh. Raleigh in his 'Apology' protests that
he only saw Desmarets once on board of his vessel. Desmarets says in
his despatches that he was on board of her several times--whether he
saw Raleigh more than once does not appear--and that Raleigh
complained to him of having been unjustly imprisoned, stripped of his
estate, and so forth; and that he was on that account resolved to
abandon his country, and, if the expedition succeeded, offer himself
and the fruit of his labour to the King of France.

If this be true, Raleigh was very wrong. But Sir Robert Schomburgk
points out that this passage, which Mr. Napier says occurs in the
last despatch, was written a month after Raleigh had sailed; and that
the previous despatch, written only four days after Raleigh sailed,
says nothing about the matter. So that it could not have been a very
important or fixed resolution on Raleigh's part, if it was only to be
recollected a month after. I do not say--as Sir Robert Schomburgk is
very much inclined to do--that it was altogether a bubble of French
fancy. It is possible that Raleigh, in his just rage at finding that
James was betraying him and sending him out with a halter round his