y, hold
out hopes, and then retreat into an _arriere boutique_, in which he lay
unapproachable. A letter to Cecil, with the uncertainty of date which
breaks the hearts of Ralegh's biographers, says: 'I have heard that Sir
Amias Preston informed your Lordship of certain mineral stones brought
from Guiana, of which your Lordship had some doubt--for so you had at my
first return--secondly, that your Lordship thought it but an invention
of mine to procure unto myself my former liberty; suspicions which might
rightly form into the cogitations of a wise man.' He assured Cecil that
a mountain near the river contained 'an abundance sufficient to please
every appetite.' Once he had thought the stones valueless, like other
merquisite. He had been convinced of his error by the refiner, who was
willing to go and be 'hanged there if he prove not his assay to be
good.' To avert suspicion that he meant to become a runagate, Ralegh was
ready not to command, but to ship as a private man. He repeated his
strange offer to be cast into the sea if he should persuade a contrary
course. The cost would be no more than L5000. 'Of that, if the Queen's
Majesty, to whom I am bound for her compassion, and your Lordship will
bear two parts, I and my friends will bear a third. Your Lordship may
have gold good and cheap, and may join others of your honourable friends
in the matter, if you please. For there is enough. The journey may go
under the colour of Virginia. We will break no peace; invade none of
the Spanish towns. We will see none of that nation, except they assail
us.' His intention was to melt down the mineral on the spot into ingots,
'for to bring all in ore would be notorious.' In 1610 he had written to
a trusted friend of James, John Ramsay, then Viscount Haddington, and
later Earl of Holderness, with similar proposals. He would follow Ramsay
as a private man, or others, and if he recommended a different course
was willing to be drowned. Then, 'if I bring them not to a mountain,
near a navigable river, covered with gold and silver ore, let the
commander have commission to cut off my head there.' Or he would give a
L40,000 bond to boot.

[Sidenote: _Overtures to the Council._]

In 1611, or 1612, he alternated his overtures to the Queen with others
to Lords of the Council, who, it may be gathered from a letter of his,
agreed to become joint-adventurers with him. A plan had been started for
sending Captain Keymis with two ships to Guiana, a