Part 10 (2/2)
He sat as senior member for the County of Cornwall in the Parliament which met on October 27, 1601 He had been previously a Cornish representative, as member for Michell, in the House which was elected in 1593 In November, 1601, he obtained the rejection of a Bill to coe 'I do not like,' he said, in a spiritof round at our wills; but rather let every round to that which it is e Act he held up for a warning It ordered every reat loss The land, 'if unploughed, would have been good pasture for beasts' Later in the Session he supported a motion for the repeal of that Statute He pleaded for a subsidy The Queen wanted it urgently, having in vain raised s out of her purse and apparel He argued for its equal payed was not the sao_ 'Call you this _par juguh, 'when a poor man pays as much as a rich, and peradventure his estate is no better than it is set at, while our estates are 3 or 4 in the Queen's books, and it is not the hundredth part of our wealth?' But he knew all ht be levied In his _Prerogative of Parliaments_ he mentions that he once moved an exemption 'by commandment of Queen Elizabeth, who desired much to spare the common people' On calculation, it was found that the exemption reduced the subsidy to a trifle He delivered a 'sharp speech' in his own defence, in a debate against ht of preemption of tin in the Duchy of Cornwall, and had coement of the business to the Warden of the Stannaries
Deliverance of the ed as the motive The real object was popularly believed to be the increase of Ralegh's eround
Previously, whether tin were 17s or 50s a hundred, the work hirant of his patent, every miner, be tin at what price soever, had 4s a week truly paid Yet, if other patents were cancelled, he would, he said, freely consent to the abrogation of his A great and uncommon silence is reported to have followed this speech Other patentees in the House were probably not inclined to be as self-denying He supported a proposal to prohibit the exportation of ordnance, notwithstanding the rise, under the existing law, of the duty to 3000 a year He said: 'I am sure heretofore one shi+p of her Majesty's was able to beat ten Spaniards; but now, by reason of our own ordnance, we are hardly matched one to one' He supported the continuance of the tax for the improvement of Dover harbour The amount was 1000 marks a year Mr Swale objected that the port was never the better Ralegh thought it one of the best and ht have been held in any of the last dozen Sessions, with as much practical effect He obtained the rejection, by 106 to 105, of a Bill against recusants The ular attendance in Church on Sundays Its loss vexed Cecil, who gibed at very flexible consciences
[Sidenote: _Governorshi+p of Jersey_]
Whatever the work in hand, legislation, public administration, or private maritime enterprise, he laboured at it as zealously as if it were his sole business All his desire was for more and more work He was not always disappointed in that pursuit Though his frequent hopes of appointment to the Vice-Chamberlainshi+p or a seat at the Privy Council were constantly foiled, he had been consoled in 1600 with the Governorshi+p of Jersey On Sir Anthony Paulett's death, the post was conferred upon him, with the lordshi+p of St Germain Out of the emoluments he had to pay a rent of 300 to the Crown for the benefit of Lord Henry Seymour Seymour had been a rival candidate for the Governorshi+p Ralegh's appointment was one of the irritations of Essex, who befriended another suitor He speedily visited the island The passage frohts at sea The islanders 'royally entertained hih in October to Cecil He had told her, she said, that he never saw a pleasanter island; but he protested unfeignedly his post was not in value the very third part that was reported, or that indeed he believed Without delay he undertook the completion of the fort Isabella Bellissima, 'for the name sake,' he wrote from the island to Cecil on October 15, 1600 He would not think of 'any penny receipt till that piece of ere past the recovery of any eneueil, 'a stately fort of great capacity,' which had cost more than 20,000 e He criticised the late Governor's 'i' of her Majesty's ain over, and spent several weeks He saw that the castles were defensible enough, and the country reasonably well provided The tradition is that he promoted a profitable trade between Jersey and Newfoundland With Newfoundland he had a near faister of Jersey lands, and abolished compulsory service of the inhabitants of the district in the Mont Orgueil garrison During his visits he sat as judge in the island Court Faculties and energy with him were elastic He always had leisure for new labours
[Sidenote: _Maritime Enterprises_]
Above all, his schemes of colonization were never interinia He was as solicitous for Guiana In October, 1596, he had despatched from Limehouse his pinnace, the Watt, under Captain Leonard Berry Mr Thoe is in Hakluyt Berry further explored the country
He collected fresh evidence of its fertility, salubrity, and riches, and of the goodwill of the natives towards Englishmen He returned in June, 1597 His departure from Guiana was accelerated by the importunities of his Indian friends for an alliance with theht prove eh's next visit
Before the Queen's death Ralegh equipped yet another expedition, under Captain Sainia and Guiana It effected nothing; but the failure was powerless to ih's faith in the value and feasibility of his discoveries
[Sidenote: _Irish Pipe Staves_]
[Sidenote: _Sale of Lismore_]
In addition to his many public or semi-public toils, he was busy with a host of private affairs Until a short time before the Queen's death he owned an extensive Irish as well as an English estate Property was always for him an incentive to labour While he had his Irish property he developed it in every possible way Lismore Castle, which he rented from the See and Chapter of Lise Carew: 'I pray, if my builders want, supply them' His factory esheads By his influence with the Privy Council he often obtained, in favour of shi+ps which he freighted, a waiver of the restraint of 'the transportation of pipe staves out of the realm of Ireland into the Islands,' that is, the Canaries, and to Seville The thinnings, he said, of his vast woods sufficed for the supply of ainst that wasteful and i practice he constantly remonstrated There had not been taken, he stated to the Lords of the Council, the hundredth tree Sir John Pope Hennessy holds a different view, and asserts that no man cut down more timber, to the irreparable hurt of the land His principle of moderation may, it is possible, have been observed by hients Latterly he founded a company to work the property With his chief partners, Bathurst, and a foreign lish Council that the Undertakers were being robbed by thedirector, Henry Pine or Pyne A sum of 5000 had, it was affirmed, been expended Not half had been returned in profits, though Ralegh had received no payment for his wood The Privy Council listened to the prayer of 'our loving friend, Sir Walter Ralegh,' and instructed Carew, the President of Munster, to forbid Pine to export h had other disputes with Pine At one time he even questioned if Pine had not conspired with his Sherborne bailiff to palelly He was involved also in endless disputes with other farht have expected to be Ultimately he resolved, by the advice of Carew and of Cecil, to free himself from the burden In December, 1602, he sold his interest in all, except the old castle of Inchiquin Ralegh Of that, Katherine, dowager Countess of Desmond, fabled to have been born in 1464, was, and reuished as the Great Earl of Cork, bought the rest, lands, castles, and fisheries, with Ralegh's shi+p Pilgri to Boyle's assertion, fifteen years later, in reply to Lady Ralegh, and thirty years later, in reply to Carew Ralegh, was a full price for a property at the time, it is admitted, woefully dilapidated Boyle declared that it was not worth nearly the a been forced to an expenditure, for which the vendor was liable, of 3700 to clear the title So shrewd a man of business would hardly have thus defrauded hiain But it does not follow that the arrangeh In his hands the land was notoriously unprofitable Lady Ralegh's estimate of it as worth 2000 a year at the time cannot be accepted
[Sidenote: _Sherborne Castle_]
Ralegh never parted with a scheme before he had another ready to occupy him Sherborne more than replaced Lismore as an object of affection, and as a subject of care and anxiety also He had not spared trouble and outlay on it since the Queen in the height of his favour first gave him a foothold as a lessee We have seen how, to develop his term into the fee, he created and transplanted Bishops His assiduity was rewarded in 1598 by Bishop Cotton's accorant of the fee to the Crown, subject to the old rent of 260 From the Crown the fee was conveyed to him The transfer comprised the lordshi+p of the Hundred of Yetminster, with the manor of Sherborne, five other e, and parks of Sherborne and Castleton Ralegh added to the estate by buying out leases with his own money, and by the purchase of several adjacent properties Then he set hi of the whole He did not stint his expenditure Sir John Harington says that with lessthe river into his garden, and buying out leases, he ht, without offence to Church or State, have co to i castle In 1594 he altered his plan, and designed a new house at some distance Only the centre of the present Sherborne Castle, a four-storied edifice with hexagonal towers at the ends, was erected by hi, but very convenient for the bigness, a place to retire to froby, when he becas with a tower to each Pope visited Lord Bristol there, and has sketched the place in one of his graceful letters to Miss Blount He dwells particularly on the lofty woods clothing the aardens, the masses of honeysuckle, the ruins of the old fortress, the sequestered bowling-green, and the grove Ralegh planted, with the stone seat from which he overlooked the town and h still dominates Sherborne, after all the efforts of the first Lord Bristol to lay it by swelling the lodge into a su Capability Brown loose into his pleasure grounds
[Sidenote: _Strife with Meere_]
He loved Sherborne, and his as perhaps still more attached to it
In October, 1601, he wrote: 'My wife says that every day this place aroorse and worse' He had his worries there, as was his self-i confidence He has written that he had lostdependents with his purse and delaying to take their account He was almost excessively resentful of frauds on his trustfulness when he detected thereat While in the Tower in August, 1592, he had appointed his 'man, John Meere,' Bailiff of the ement He had invested him with copyhold lands Several years later, in 1596, Adrian Gilbert took up his regular abode at Sherborne, and superintended his brother's improvements, under the title of Constable of Sherborne Castle Meere quarrelled with hiatives of Constable and Bailiff to license the killing of anih nominated another Bailiff, but Meere refused to retire The family had interest with one of the Howards, Viscount Bindon, of whose 'extortions' and 'poisoning of his wife' Ralegh takesspoken Mrs Meere, too, was a kinswoh so bitterly against both Meere and Essex that he believed either capable of any monstrosity
He did the Earl'sthat he secretly had ery; 'for,' said Ralegh, 'he writes my hand so perfectly as I cannot any way discern the difference' Colour is given to the charge against hiby afterwards prosecuted hilish lands to Captain Caufeilde Meere in August, 1601, arrested the opposition Bailiff For this Ralegh put him in the stocks in Sherborne ood behaviour by the county justices Thereupon Meere served upon Ralegh and others twenty-six subpoenas Next year the conflict went on raging Meere succeeded at the assizes in sustaining his right to the bailiwick As Ralegh kept hih on his part coh Lord Bindon's influence, Meere, at once 'a notorious cowardly brute, and of a strong villainous spirit,' had been allowed to sue hih out of the land in Jersey
[Sidenote: _Sir Ae_]
Yet these vexations onlythe more fondly to his Sherborne home He hoped to dwell happily and splendidly there hi line of descendants
While he had only a ninety-nine years' lease, he had conveyed his term to trustees for his son Walter He had done this by two conveyances
These he revoked in 1598 His motives, he explained later, were several: 'I found n to be at a stand, and that I daily expected dangerous eainst her Majesty's enerants made any provision for200 a year to Lady Ralegh for her life After he had acquired the fee, he conveyed it by deed at Midsummer, 1602, to himself for life, with successive remainders to his son Walter, to any future sons, and to his brother Carew Ralegh The deed had been drawn by Doddridge, afterwards a judge, many months before it was sealed The reason of the date chosen for its formal execution was stated by hie from Sir Amias Preston in the su too late to join the Guiana expedition, went off with Sonalized hie may have arisen out of the Essex feud, for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Essex's vehement partisan, is known to have been concerned in it No duel was fought Fuller, who errs in describing Ralegh as a Privy Councillor, says in his _Worthies_: 'Sir Walter Ralegh declined the challenge without any abate a fair and fixed estate, ife and children, being a Privy Councillor, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries, he looked upon it as an uneven lay to stake hih of good birth and courage, yet of no considerable estate' Fuller's account is not to be rejected because the ground assigned overned by prosaic laws nobody was expected to risk his life on unequal terms
There had to be a parity of ranks; and the sah himself had no such fondness for the fashi+onable ht of refusal In his History he denounces 'the audacious, coeous vanity of duellists' Men who die in single combat he styles 'martyrs of the Devil' He derides the victor's honours, 'where the hangarland,' and the folly of the duellist's principle, that rudeness 'ought to be civilized with death' In the essay entitled _Instructions to his Son_, he declares a challenge justifiable only if the offence proceed from another; it is not, he says, 'if the offence proceed from thyself, for if thou overcome, thou art under the cruelty of the law; if thou art overcome, thou art dead or dishonoured'
[Sidenote: _Its consequences_]
At any rate, whatever the origin or issue of the dispute, he thought he was going to fight In consequence, as he stated subsequently, he resolved to leave his estate settled An incident of his preparations, which seeravity later on
He had spread out his loose papers, and ae, which he had borrowed froh's library In it the title of the King of Scots to the succession was contested Cobhah's intended second, happened to see and carry off the volume It was found at a critical h That was an affair of the future For the present Ralegh probably associated Sir Ae chiefly with the definite disposition of his property in a manner consonant with the creation of an affluent and permanent county family