be order taken for the discharge of his debts when he was gone; neither had I one thousand pounds, for, if I had, I could have made my peace better with it otherwise than by giving it Stucley. Further, he gave out, when I came to Sir Edward Parham's house, who had been a follower of mine, and gave me good entertainment, I had there received some dram of poison. When I answered, that I feared no such thing, for I was wellassured of those in the house; and therefore wished him to have no such thought. Now I will not only say, that God is the God of revenge, but also of mercy; and I desire God to forgive him, as I hope to be forgiven.” Then casting his eye upon his note of remembrance, he went on thus:

"It was told the king, that I was brought perforce into England; and that I did not intend to return again: whereas Captain Charles Parker, Mr. Tresham, Mr. Leak, and divers others, that knew how I was dealt withal by the common soldiers, will witness to the contrary. They were an hundred and fifty of them who mutinied against me, and sent for me to come to them; for unto me they would not come. They kept me close prisoner in my cabin, and forced me to take an oath, that I would not go into England without their consent, otherwise they would have cast me into the sea. After I had taken this oath, I did, by wine, gifts, and fair words, so work upon the master-gunner, and ten or twelve of the faction, that I won them to desist from their purposes, and intended, when I returned home, to procure their pardon; in the mean while proposed, that I would dispose of some of them in Ireland; to which they agreed, and would have gone into the north parts, from which I dissuaded them, and told them, they were red-shanks who inhabited there, so drew them to the south; and the better to clear myself of them, was forced to get them a hundred and fifty pounds at Kingsale, otherwise I had never got from them.

"There was a report also, that I meant not to go to Guiana at all; and that I knew not of any mine, nor intended any such matter, but only to get my liberty, which I had not the wit to keep. But it was my full intent to go for gold, for the benefit of his Majesty, myself, and those who went with me, with the rest of my countrymen: though he that knew the head of the mine would not discover it when he saw my son was slain, but made himself away." Then turning to the earl of Arundel, he said, "My lord, you being in the gallery of my ship at my departure, I remember you took me by the hand, and said, you would request one thing of me; which was, whether I made a good voyage or a bad, that I would return again into England; which I then promised, and gave you my faith I would." "So you did," said his lordship; "it is true, and they were the last words I said to you." "Another slander was raised of

me, that I should have gone away from them, and have left them at Guiana; but there were a great many worthy men, who accompanied me always, as my sergeant-major, and divers other (whom he named), that knew it was none of my intention. Also it hath been said, that I stinted them of fresh water; to which I answer, every one was, as they must be in a ship, furnished by measure, and not according to their appetites. This course all seamen know must be used among them, and to this strait were we driven. Another opinion was held, that I carried with me sixteen thousand pieces of gold; and that all the voyage I intended, was but to gain my liberty and this money into my hands: but, as I shall answer it before God, I had no more in all the world, directly or indirectly, than one hundred pounds; whereof I gave about forty-five pounds to my wife. But the ground of this false report was, that twenty thousand pounds being adventured, and but four thousand appearing in the surveyor's books, the rest had my hand to the bills for divers adventures; but, as I hope to be saved, I had not a penny more than one hundred pounds. These are the material points I thought good to speak of; I am at this instant to render my account to God, and I protest, as I shall appear before him, this that I have spoken is true.

"I will borrow but a little time more of Mr. Sheriff, that I may not detain him too long; and herein I shall speak of the imputation laid upon me through the jealousy of the people, that I had been a persecutor of my lord of Essex; that I rejoiced in his death, and stood in a window over-against him when he suffered, and puffed out tobacco in defiance of him; when as, God is my witness, that I shed tears for him when he died; and, as I hope to look God in the face hereafter, my lord of Essex did not see my face at the time of his death; for I was far off, in the armoury, where I saw him, but he saw not me. It is true, I was of a contrary faction; but I take the same God to witness, that I had no hand in his death, nor bear him any ill affection, but always believed it would be better for me that his life had been preserved; for after his fall, I got the hatred of those who wished me well before: and those who set me against him, set themselves afterwards against me, and were my greatest enemies: and my soul hath many times been grieved, that I was not nearer to him when he died; because, as I understood afterwards, he asked for me at his death, and desired to have been reconciled to me.

"And now I entreat, that you all will join with me in prayer to that great God of heaven whom I have grievously offended, being a man full of all vanity, who has lived a sinful life in such callings as have been most inducing to it; for I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice; that his almighty goodness

will forgive me; that he will cast away my sins from me; and that he will receive me into everlasting life: so I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God."

Then proclamation being made, that all men should depart the scaffold, he prepared himself for death, giving away his hat and cap and money to some attendants who stood near him. When he took leave of the lords and other gentlemen, he entreated the lord Arundel to desire the king, that no scandalous writings to defame him might be published after his death; concluding, "I have a long journey to go, therefore must take my leave." Then having put off his gown and doublet, he called to the headsman to shew him the axe, which not being suddenly done, he said, "I prithee, let me see it. Dost thou think that I am afraid of it?" Having fingered the edge of it a little, he returned it, and said, smiling, to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a sound cure for all diseases"; and having entreated the company to pray to God to assist and strengthen him, the executioner kneeled down and asked him forgiveness; which Ralegh, laying his hand upon his shoulder, granted. Then being asked which way he would lay himself on the block, he answered, "So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies." As he stooped to lay himself along, and reclined his head, his face being towards the east, the headsman spread his own cloak under him. After a little pause, he gave the sign that he was ready for the stroke by lifting up his hand, and his head was struck off at two blows, his body never shrinking or moving. His head was shewed on each side of the scaffold, and then put into a red leather bag, and, with his velvet nightgown thrown over it, was afterwards conveyed away in a mourning coach of his lady's. His body, as we are told, was buried hard by, in the chancel of St. Margaret's church, near the altar; but his head was long preserved in a case by his widow, for she survived him. twenty-nine years, as I have found by some anecdotes remaining in the family; and after her death it was kept also by her son Carew, with whom it is said to have been buried.

SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)

Of Friendship

IT had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo, because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be as