England against
another, at the direct instance of a leading Minister, and with the
connivance of the King himself. The King was informed of the intrigue,
and knew as much as his indolence permitted of its various steps. He was
never obliged to know so much, or to betray such signs of knowing
anything, as not to be in a position on an exigency to disavow the
whole. This was his idea of state-craft.

The negotiation with the French Government was but one of the threads in
the skein. James and his advisers were in a frame of mind in which any
foreign adventure had a chance of securing their support. Ralegh, and
the popular excitement which had wafted him from a prison to an
Admiral's command, were pawns moved by the political speculators of the
Court for their own purposes. Wild rumours circulated of objects to
which the expedition was about really to be directed. The circumstances
of the expedition, the character of its chief, his sudden liberation,
and the trust reposed in him, were so extraordinary that all Europe was
disturbed. Though Continental thought may, as the greatest of modern
historians has said, have visited the memory of Ralegh since with an
indifference more bitter than censure or reproach, it was very far from
indifferent in 1617. At home cynics disbelieved the sincerity of Ralegh.
They ridiculed the notion that, after the iniquitous treatment he had
experienced, he would have the folly to come back. Friends apparently
were not entirely free from the suspicion that he might be induced, if
he failed, to shake the dust of an ungrateful kingdom off his feet. Lord
Arundel at parting earnestly dissuaded him from yielding to any
temptation to a self-banishment, which assuredly he never contemplated.
A solicitation of authority to carry Spanish prizes in certain
circumstances into French ports is no evidence that he contemplated a
change of allegiance. Reports that he had asked the licence may explain
why it occurred to Arundel or Pembroke to pledge him against such an use
of it.

[Sidenote: _Plot against Genoa._]

If acquaintances who felt how ill he had been treated feared he might be
beguiled into abjuring his ungrateful country, others deemed the
ostensible gold digging aim of the expedition too simple and bounded for
his subtle and lofty ambition. Leonello, the Secretary to the Venetian
Embassy, writing to the Council of Ten on January 19 and 26, and
February 3, 1617, described communications between Ral