f,
inquired, 'What will you do, if, after all this expenditure, you miss of
the gold mine?' The reply was: 'We will look after the Plate Fleet, to
be sure.' 'But then,' remonstrated Bacon, 'You will be pirates!' 'Ah!'
Ralegh is alleged to have cried, 'who ever heard of men being pirates
for millions!' The Mexican fleet for 1618 is in fact computed to have
conveyed treasure to the amount of L2,545,454. It is scarcely credible
that Ralegh, though never distinguished for cautious speech, should have
been so intemperately rash. Such a confession to Bacon, known to be
Winwood's antagonist, who would rejoice to have ground for thwarting the
anti-Spanish party at Court, is particularly unlikely. Mr. Spedding
himself, while he believes it, regards Ralegh's reply as 'a playful
diversion of an inconvenient question.' As a serious statement the
saying is not the more authentic that it emanates from Wilson. Naturally
it has been accepted by writers for whom Ralegh is a mere buccaneer.

[Sidenote: _Count Gondomar._]

From the first it is evident that Spain and the Spanish faction at the
English Court laboured to place upon the expedition the construction
which Ralegh's apocryphal outburst to Bacon would warrant. Don Diego
Sarmiento de Acuna, the Ambassador of Spain, better known by the title,
not yet his, of Count Gondomar, was the mouthpiece of the view. He
offered, as Ralegh in his _Apology_ virtually admits, to procure a
safe-conduct for Ralegh to and from the mine, with liberty to bring home
any gold he should find. The condition he imposed was that the
expedition should be limited to one or two ships. The reason Ralegh gave
in his paper for declining the arrangement, was that he did not trust
sufficiently to the Ambassador's promises to go unarmed. In view of the
way Spaniards were in the habit of treating English visitors, he clearly
could not with prudence. At all events, for its refusal, if the offer
were ever made in a practicable shape, James and his Government are
obviously as responsible as he. They might, if they chose, have
withdrawn his commission if he rejected those terms. Gondomar was a good
Spaniard. He had a patriotic hatred for 'the old pirate bred under the
English virago, and by her fleshed in Spanish blood and ruin.' His
influence with James was boundless. He could 'pipe James asleep,' it was
said, 'with facetious words and gestures.' They were the more diverting
from their contrast with his lank, austere as