re, she commandeth that you leave your
picture with her. For the rest I leave till our meeting, or to the
report of the bearer, who would needs be the messenger of this good
news. So I commit you to the will and protection of God, who send us
such life and death as he shall please, or hath appointed.

"Richmond, this Friday morning,

"Your true Brother,

"W. RALEIGH."

* This letter was a few years since in the possession of Mr.
Pomeroy Gilbert, fort-major at Dartmouth, a descendant of
the admiral's.

"Who would not die, sir, for such a woman?" said Sir Humphrey (and he
said truly), as he showed that letter to Amyas.

"Who would not? But she bids you rather live for her."

"I shall do both, young man; and for God too, I trust. We are going in
God's cause; we go for the honor of God's Gospel, for the deliverance of
poor infidels led captive by the devil; for the relief of my distressed
countrymen unemployed within this narrow isle; and to God we commit our
cause. We fight against the devil himself; and stronger is He that is
within us than he that is against us."

Some say that Raleigh himself came down to Plymouth, accompanied the
fleet a day's sail to sea, and would have given her majesty the slip,
and gone with them Westward-ho, but for Sir Humphrey's advice. It is
likely enough: but I cannot find evidence for it. At all events, on the
11th June the fleet sailed out, having, says Mr. Hayes, "in number about
260 men, among whom we had of every faculty good choice, as shipwrights,
masons, carpenters, smiths, and such like, requisite for such an action;
also mineral men and refiners. Beside, for solace of our people and
allurement of the savages, we were provided of musique in good variety;
not omitting the least toys, as morris-dancers, hobby-horses, and
May-like conceits, to delight the savage people, whom we intended to win
by all fair means possible." An armament complete enough, even to that
tenderness towards the Indians, which is so striking a feature of
the Elizabethan seamen (called out in them, perhaps, by horror at the
Spanish cruelties, as well as by their more liberal creed), and to the
daily service of God on board of every ship, according to the simple
old instructions of Captain John Hawkins to one of his little squadrons,
"Keep good company; beware of fire; serve God daily; and love one
another"--an armament, in short, complete in all but men. The sailors
had been picked up hasti