LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH: FOUNDED ON AUTHENTIC AND ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS, SOME OF THEM NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED: INCLUDING A VIEW OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TRANSACTIONS IN THE REIGNS OF ELIZABETH AND JAMES I.; SKETCHES OF BURLEIGH, ESSEX, SECRETARY CECIL, SIDNEY, SPENSER, AND OTHER EMINENT CONTEMPORARIES: WITH A VINDICATION OF HIS CHARACTER FROM THE ATTACKS OF BY PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, ESQ., WITH PORTRAITS, SEALS, AND AUTOGRAPHS, BY HORSBURGH, JACKSON, FIFTH EDITION. EDINBURGH: OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT; AND SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., LONDON. MDCCCXLIV. PREFACE. I TRUST it will not be deemed presumptuous when I express a hope that this Life will be found the most authentic account of SIR WALTER RALEIGH which has yet been given to the Public. This is said not only with respect, but with gratitude for the labours of my predecessors, Oldys, Birch, Cayley, and latterly Mrs Thomson, whose Appendix of original letters, although undervalued by herself, has assisted me in tracing to its real authors that extraordinary conspiracy against Raleigh, which ultimately brought him to the scaffold. But whilst I acknowledge these obligations, I must add that in none of these works, so far as I can judge, has full justice been done to Raleigh. The mistakes and aspersions of Hume, and other writers, have been suffered (except by Cayley) to pass unnoticed; the secret history of his offences, his trial, and condemnation, has been abandoned as obscure and unintelligible; his famous and fatal Guianian voyage has been misunderstood; and the gross charges against his honour and veracity, have neither been sufficiently examined, nor their falsehood exposed. To supply these defects and omissions, to inves tigate with care, and determine with truth and clearness, the history and character of an extraordinary man, who perhaps more than any other of his age, combined profound views with practical knowledge and activity, has been my object in the present work. I have endeavoured also to surround him with groups of his most eminent contemporaries, and, at the same time, to introduce into this biographical picture a fuller account than is to be found in our general historians, of those great political events in the reign of Elizabeth, in which he was a principal actor. In accomplishing this, the reader will perceive by the references in the text, and by the documents in the Appendix, that I have consulted some of Raleigh's manuscripts in the British Museum, and through the permission of Lord Melbourne, which I gratefully acknowledge, have taken various extracts from original letters and journals preserved in His Majesty's State-paper Office. I beg also to notice the courtesy of Mr Lemon and Mr Lechmere, who, although trammelled by strict official rules, showed every disposition to facilitate my researches. For the purposes of history and biography, these stores of original materials cannot perhaps be too highly appreciated, as may be seen by the interesting details which have been derived from this source alone, in the account I have given of the invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. In truth, such materials are the only legitimate bases on which all history must be founded; and until not only these, but all our national papers and muniments, are made accessible to the public, no perfect History of England can be written. May we hope that by the |
