of disease, and as death-doomed.

[Sidenote: _Commission with Omissions._]

Ralegh was liberated expressly that he might work out his Guiana plans.
He was not pardoned. A royal commission was granted him in August, 1616.
He had understood that he was to have a commission under the Great Seal,
which would be addressed to him as 'trusty and well-beloved.' Actually,
though he and others often seem to have forgotten the difference, it was
under the Privy Seal, and he was described as plain 'Sir Walter Ralegh.'
The honorary epithets are known to have been inserted originally, and
afterwards erased. Similarly, in a warrant for the payment to him in
November, 1617, of the statutable bounty of 700 crowns for his
construction of the Destiny, an erasure precedes his name. The space it
covers would suffice for the expression, 'our well-beloved subject,'
usual in such grants. The withholding at any rate of a pardon excited
apprehensions. It was matter of common talk. Carew wrote to Roe on March
19, 1616, that Ralegh had left the Tower, and was to go to Guiana, but
'remains unpardoned until his return.' Merchants, it was stated,
required security, 'Sir Walter Ralegh being under the peril of the law,'
that they should enjoy the benefits of the expedition. His kinsmen and
friends, it was said, were willing to serve only 'if they might be
commanded by none but himself.' Their scruples had to be pacified by the
issue of an express licence to him to carry subjects of the King to the
south of America, and elsewhere within America, possessed and inhabited
by heathen and savage people, with shipping, weapons and ordnance. He
was authorised to keep gold, silver, and other goods which he should
bring back, the fifth part of the gold, silver, pearls, and precious
stones, with all customs due for any other goods, being truly paid to
the Crown. Further, his Majesty, of his most special grace, constituted
Ralegh sole commander, 'to punish, pardon, and rule according to such
orders as he shall establish in cases capital, criminal, and civil, and
to exercise martial law in as ample a manner as our lieutenant-general
by sea or land.' The commission did not contain the authority conferred
by Ralegh's old Guiana commission to subdue foreign lands. It too is
reported to have been originally inserted, and to have been struck out
by James.

[Sidenote: _Unpardoned._]

[Sidenote: _Advice from, and avowal to, Bacon._]

Ralegh must, like his friends and