f moderation may, it is
possible, have been observed by himself, and not by his agents. Latterly
he founded a company to work the property. With his chief partners,
Bathurst, and a foreign merchant, Veronio Martens, he complained in 1601
to the English Council that the Undertakers were being robbed by the
managing director, Henry Pine or Pyne. A sum of L5000 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 more pipe
staves. Ralegh had other disputes with Pine. At one time he even
questioned if Pine had not conspired with his Sherborne bailiff to palm
off a forged lease for a long term of the lands of Mogelly. He was
involved also in endless disputes with other farm tenants, as an
absentee landlord might 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 remained till 1604, tenant
for life. Boyle, since distinguished as the Great Earl of Cork, bought
the rest, lands, castles, and fisheries, with Ralegh's ship Pilgrim
thrown in as a make-weight. The amount paid, according 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 amount he paid. He complained of having been
forced to an expenditure, for which the vendor was liable, of L3700 to
clear the title. So shrewd a man of business would hardly have thus
defrauded himself. He is sure to have had an excellent bargain. But it
does not follow that the arrangement was unfair to a speculative
absentee like Ralegh. In his hands the land was notoriously
unprofitable. Lady Ralegh's estimate of it as worth L2000 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