He was premature in
reposing confidence. He has written that he had lost more than he was
worth by trusting dependents with his purse and delaying to take their
account. He was almost excessively resentful of frauds on his
trustfulness when he detected them. He was masterful in small things, as
in great. While in the Tower in August, 1592, he had appointed his 'man,
John Meere,' Bailiff of the manor of Sherborne, with extensive powers of
management. 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 him about the rival
prerogatives of Constable and Bailiff to license the killing of animals
for meat in Lent. Ralegh 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 takes
merit to himself for not having spoken. Mrs. Meere, too, was a kinswoman
of Lady Essex. Long strife had prejudiced Ralegh so bitterly against
both Meere and Essex that he believed either capable of any monstrosity.
He did the Earl's memory the injustice of fancying that he secretly had
meant to use the Bailiff for a malicious forgery; 'for,' said Ralegh,
'he writes my hand so perfectly as I cannot any way discern the
difference.' Colour is given to the charge against him of the forgery of
an Irish lease, by the fact that Digby afterwards prosecuted him for the
forgery of Ralegh's signature to a conveyance of English lands to
Captain Caufeilde. Meere in August, 1601, arrested the opposition
Bailiff. For this Ralegh put him in the stocks in Sherborne
market-place, and had him bound over to good 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 him
out nevertheless, he petitioned the Star Chamber. Ralegh on his part
complained loudly that, through Lord Bindon's influence, Meere, at once
'a notorious cowardly brute, and of a strong villainous spirit,' had
been allowed to sue him, though out of the land in Jersey.

[Sidenote: _Sir Amias Preston's Challenge._]

Yet these vexations only made him cling the more fondly to his Sherborne
home. He hoped to dwell happily and