critics and would-be
profit-sharers proves.

Once again, after many years, and after he had endured many wrongs,
hardships, and imprisonment in England, Raleigh succeeded in 1617 in
making his way to Guiana. His health had now become shattered, and he
found himself unable to explore the Orinoco River in person, with the
result that the absence of his powerful and charming personality, which
had effected so much in these regions in the past, was much felt, to the
disadvantage of the expedition. A portion of his forces made its way
inland; but it was attacked by the Spaniards, and young Walter Raleigh,
the only son of the explorer, was slain. On this occasion the party
actually discovered four gold refineries. Spain, however, had increased
the strength of her position in this neighbourhood enormously, and the
expedition failed.

Raleigh, broken-hearted at the death of his son, returned to England. He
had procured no gold; all that he had won for himself was the enmity of
Spain, which, in the end, through the instrumentality of King James I.,
cost him his head. So much for some of the most important of the early
English adventurers in the seas which the Spaniards claimed as their
own.

To refer to the whole company of notable buccaneers in detail is
impossible, although so many others, from Cavendish to Sharpe, Davis,
Knight, and the rest, are worthy of note. There were, moreover, the
Dutch freebooters, such as Van Noorte, de Werte, Spilsbergen, and
others, as Jaques l'Ermite, Francois l'Ollonais, and Bartolomew
Portugues, who ransacked and burned every town which failed to resist
their fierce onslaughts, from the Gulf of Darien in the north all round
the coast to the Pacific Ocean on the west.

CHAPTER X

FOREIGN RAIDS ON PORTUGUESE COLONIES

The rivalry which had existed between the Portuguese and the French in
the early days of Brazilian colonization has already been referred to.
With this exception, the first era of the Colony of Brazil was
comparatively peaceful--that is to say, the Portuguese, proving
themselves of a more liberal temperament than the Spaniards, did not
suffer from the fierce aggressions of the English and the Dutch to the
same extent as did their Castilian neighbours. In 1580, however, the
situation altered itself abruptly--in a most unpleasant fashion so far
as the Portuguese were concerned.

In that year Portugal became subject to Spain, and thus the Portuguese
Colonies were now