What follows is obscure; but it appears that Raleigh, failing to discover the mines, attacked and plundered the little town of St. Thomas, which the Spaniards had built on the territories of Guiana, which Raleigh had acquired three-and-twenty years before for the English crown, and which James, with his wonted pusillanimity, had allowed the Spaniards to occupy, without so much as a remonstrance.

This conduct of Raleigh must be admitted unjustifiable, as Spain and England were then in a state of profound peace; and the plea that truce or peace with Spain never crossed the line, though popular in England in those days of Spanish aggression and Romish intolerance, cannot for a moment stand the test either of reason or of law.

Falling into suspicion with his comrades, Sir Walter was brought home in irons, and delivered into the hands of the pitiless and rancorous king, who resolved to destroy him—­yet, dreading to awaken popular indignation by delivering him up to Spain, caused to revive the ancient sentence, which had never been set aside by a formal pardon, and cruelly and unjustly executed him on that spot, so consecrated by the blood of noble patriots and holy martyrs, the dark and gory scaffold of Tower Hill.

And here, in conclusion, I can do no better than to quote from an anonymous writer in a recent English magazine, the following brief tribute to his high qualities, and sad doom, accompanied by his last exquisite letter to his wife.

“His mind was indeed of no common order.  With him, the wonders of earth and the dispensations of heaven were alike welcome; his discoveries at sea, his adventures abroad, his attacks on the colonies of Spain, were all arenas of glory to him—­but he was infinitely happier by his own fireside, in recalling the spirits of the great in the history of his country—­nay, was even more contented in the gloom of his ill-deserved prison, with the volume of genius or the book of life before him, than in the most animating successes of the battle-field.

“The event which clouded his prosperity and destroyed his influence with the queen—­his marriage with Elizabeth Throgmorton—­was the one upon which he most prided himself; and justly, too—­for, if ever woman was created the companion, the solace of man—­if ever wife was deemed the dearest thing of earth to which earth clings, that woman was his wife.  Not merely in the smiles of the court did her smiles make a world of sunshine to her Raleigh; not merely when the destruction of the Armada made her husband’s name glorious; not merely when his successes and his discoveries on the ocean made his presence longed for at the palace, did she interweave her best affections with the lord of her heart.  It was in the hour of adversity she became his dearest companion, his ‘ministering angel;’ and when the gloomy walls of the accursed Tower held all her empire of love, how proudly she owned her sovereignty!  Not even before the feet of her haughty mistress, in her prayerful entreaties for her dear Walter’s life, did she so eminently shine forth in all the majesty of feminine excellence as when she guided his counsels in the dungeon, and nerved his mind to the trials of the scaffold, where, in his manly fortitude, his noble self-reliance, the people, who mingled their tears with his triumph, saw how much the patriot was indebted to the woman.