These and other such arguments were the best analysis which Sir Humfrey had to offer of the spirit which he felt to be working in him.  We may think what we please of them.  But we can have but one thought of the great grand words with which the memorial concludes, and they alone would explain the love which Elizabeth bore him:—­

“Never, therefore, mislike with me for taking in hand any laudable and honest enterprise, for if through pleasure or idleness we purchase shame, the pleasure vanisheth, but the shame abideth for ever.

“Give me leave, therefore, without offence, always to live and die in this mind:  that he is not worthy to live at all that, for fear or danger of death, shunneth his country’s service and his own honour, seeing that death is inevitable and the fame of virtue immortal, wherefore in this behalf routare vel lintere sperno.”

Two voyages which he undertook at his own cost, which shattered his fortune, and failed, as they naturally might, since inefficient help or mutiny of subordinates, or other disorders, are inevitable conditions under which more or less great men must be content to see their great thoughts mutilated by the feebleness of their instruments, did not dishearten him, and in June, 1583, a last fleet of five ships sailed from the port of Dartmouth, with commission from the Queen to discover and take possession from latitude 45^0 to 50^0 north—­a voyage not a little noteworthy, there being planted in the course of it the first English colony west of the Atlantic.  Elizabeth had a foreboding that she would never see him again.  She sent him a jewel as a last token of her favour, and she desired Raleigh to have his picture taken before he went.

The history of the voyage was written by a Mr. Edward Hayes, of Dartmouth, one of the principal actors in it, and as a composition it is more remarkable for fine writing than any very commendable thought in the author.  But Sir Humfrey’s nature shines through the infirmity of his chronicler; and in the end, indeed, Mr. Hayes himself is subdued into a better mind.  He had lost money by the voyage, and we will hope his higher nature was only under a temporary eclipse.  The fleet consisted (it is well to observe the ships and the size of them) of the Delight, 120 tons; the barque Raleigh, 200 tons (this ship deserted off the Land’s End); the Golden Hinde and the Swallow, 40 tons each; and the Squirrel, which was called the frigate, 10 tons.  For the uninitiated in such matters, we may add, that if in a vessel the size of the last, a member of the Yacht Club would consider that he had earned a dub-room immortality if he had ventured a run in the depth of summer from Cowes to the Channel Islands.

“We were in all,” says Mr. Hayes, “260 men, among whom we had of every faculty good choice.  Besides, for solace of our own people, and allurement of the savages, we were provided of music in good variety, not omitting the least toys, as morris dancers, hobby horses, and May-like conceits to delight the savage people.”